Capturing the
world of science.
Unlock
the potential of imaging in the Helmholtz Association across all research domains and along the entire imaging pipeline.
Improve
leverage and accessibility of the innovative imaging modalities, applications and data treasures.
Enable
the delivery of generalizable imaging solutions.
News, Events & Jobs
Helmholtz Imaging contributes to two Excellence Clusters in Hamburg
From uncovering hidden ancient texts with mobile X-ray imaging to studying sustainable water-driven materials, two Excellence Clusters in Hamburg showcase how advanced imaging enables interdisciplinary research across the humanities, natural sciences, and engineering.
Best Scientific Image Contest 2026: Call for Submissions
Extended deadline: Submit your best scientific images by May 13, 2026 for a chance to win best image in one of the three categories Jury Award, Public Choice Award & Participants’ Choice Award, and exciting prizes including €4,500 in total prize money. Show us what your research looks like!
NEW on CONNECT: Estimating Soil Properties from Satellite Data with Explainable AI
How can we accurately and transparently predict soil nutrients from space? A new CONNECT blog post presents Hype-Spectral, a top-performing approach combining hyperspectral imagery and explainable AI.Portfolio
Support Hub
The Support Hub is your gateway to the world of Helmholtz Imaging! Simply send an e-mail to support@helmholtz-imaging.de and we will help you out. Any request is welcome, whether it is a question about administrative or imaging-related matters, consulting requests, project support, Helmholtz Imaging Collaborations or access to our portfolio.
CONNECT
Helmholtz Imaging CONNECT is the heart of the Helmholtz Imaging Network. Get to know the imaging experts from the Helmholtz Association, explore the amazing portfolio of cutting-edge instruments from satellites to synchrotrons, dive into the exciting world of imaging applications. Helmholtz Imaging CONNECT facilitates finding partners and collaborators for innovative projects, with just the right complementary expertise necessary to conduct research for grand challenges.
We want you! If you are affiliated to one of the Helmholtz Centers, we invite you to add your profile, your modalities and your applications to the website. Be Helmholtz Imaging!
Collaborations
Struggling with an imaging-related project? Apply for a Helmholtz Imaging Collaboration and tap into the expertise of Helmholtz Imaging! Collaborations enable you to team up with one of our units for an elongated period of time (up to 6 months or even longer) to work on a project together. Whether you require support in (AI-based) image analysis, image reconstruction, annotation, data management, software solutions, addressing inverse problems, developing novel imaging modalities, 3D visualization and more – we are your partner.
Solutions
Helmholtz Imaging Solutions provide software driven strategies for solving common problems across imaging domains and tools. In reality, being aware of a software solution for a scientific problem is often followed by a time-consuming process of figuring out how to install the specific tool and how to precisely use it to reproduce a published result. We provide a framework to unify and simplify this process. Additionally, we curate a catalog of Helmholtz Imaging Solutions developed within our community.
Research
Projects
Helmholtz Imaging Projects are granted to cross-disciplinary research teams that identify innovative research topics at the intersection of imaging and information & data science, initiate cross-cutting research collaborations, and thus underpin the growth of the Helmholtz Imaging network. Discover our outstanding projects or apply for the annual call.
Publications
Helmholtz Imaging captures the world of science. Discover unique data sets, ready-to-use software tools, and top-level research papers.
The platform’s output originates from our research groups as well as from projects funded by us, theses supervised by us and collaborations initiated through us. Altogether, our publications showcase the whole diversity of Helmholtz Imaging.
Highlight Projects
NeuroHarmonize – A Benchmark Decentralized Data Harmonization Workflow for AI-Driven Alzheimer’s Disease Management
The benchmark addresses the lack of harmonized, reproducible, and privacy-preserving multimodal datasets for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). NeuroHarmonize creates a FAIR-compliant, decentralized benchmarking framework to accelerate reliable, transparent, and collaborative AI for AD diagnosis, prognosis, and long-term monitoring.Image: Georg Kislinger, Martina Schifferer, Christian Haass & Maryam Khojasteh-Farat, DZNE (BSIC 2021 contribution)
RenewBench – A Global Benchmark for Renewable Energy Generation
Renewable energy’s variability makes grid management complex. RenewBench aims to provide standardized, high-quality data to advance trustworthy AI models and accelerate the transition to sustainable energy.
TIMELY: Time-series Integration across Modalities for Evaluation of Latent DYnamics
TIMELY provides the first comprehensive benchmark for multimodal biological time-series data, addressing the lack of standardized, high-quality datasets for modeling complex dynamical systems. It fosters the development of statistical and foundation models tailored to the analytical needs of research in biomedicine and neuroscience.Image: Scidraw
Pero – Unlocking ML Potential: Benchmark Datasets on Perovskite Thin Film Processing
Addressing the lack of standardized, FAIR benchmark datasets in perovskite photovoltaics. Pero enables reproducible AI models for efficiency prediction, material classification, and defect detection, which are critical for industrial scaling of sustainable energy technologies.Image: Photo: Markus Breig, KIT; illustration: Felix Laufer, KIT
SCHEMA – profiling Spatial Cancer HEterogeneity across modalities to benchmark Metastasis risk prediction
SCHEMA creates a benchmark dataset linking tumor samples with metastasis outcomes to enable machine-learning models that predict metastasis risk and support clinical decision-making.Image: Hellmut Augustin, DKFZ (BSIC 2021 contribution)
UQOB – Uncertainty Quantification in Object-detection Benchmark
Creating a benchmark dataset for object-detection and Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) in a multi-rater setting, to address annotation variability and AI model evaluation.
GRIDMARK – Generating Reproducible Insights through Data Benchmarking for AI in Energy Systems
Transforming energy systems toward climate neutrality: Distribution grids have the potential to be catalysts for the energy transition. Unfortunately, most Distribution System Operators lack the resources to fully monitor their systems. Therefore, there is an urgent need for more high-quality data, particularly to develop and test machine learning models.
Spatio-temporal inverse approaches for EEG/MEG reconstruction of neural networks in the human brain
This project aims to develop novel methods for reconstructing brain activity from dynamic EEG and MEG measurements. By using realistic, individualized finite element models and advanced regularization techniques, including machine learning, we seek to solve this inverse problem in real patient settings, ultimately improving the diagnosis and treatment of medication-resistant focal epilepsy.
Helmholtz Imaging’s mission is to unlock the potential of imaging in the Helmholtz Association. Image data provide a substantial part of data being generated in scientific research. Helmholtz Imaging is the overarching platform to better leverage and make accessible to everyone the innovative modalities, methodological richness, and data treasures of the Helmholtz Association.
For us, imaging is the whole process from data acquisition and data preparation to data management and data analysis. For this reason, we feel that the anchoring at the three host centers DESY, DKFZ and MDC is optimal to serve the entire imaging pipeline and jointly generate the greatest possible added value for the entire association. We are dedicated to making Helmholtz Imaging an internationally visible platform for imaging research.
Helmholtz Imaging is one of five platforms (HIDA, HIFIS, Helmholtz.AI and HMC) initiated by the Helmholtz Information & Data Science Incubator.
People of Helmholtz Imaging
Prof. Dr. Martin Burger
Kris Dreher
Dr. Philipp Heuser
Prof. Dr. Dagmar Kainmüller
Dr. Sara Krause-Solberg
Dr. Annika Reinke
