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


Image by Markus Bachmann, DLR, called "A Heart from the TanDEM-X DEM", showing a heart-shaped topographic structure in the Lut Desert, Iran, acquired by the German radar satellites mission TanDEM-X.
Image: Markus Bachmann, DLR | info

Seven new Helmholtz Imaging projects selected for funding

Helmholtz Imaging has selected seven new interdisciplinary projects for funding from its latest project call. The projects address key challenges in imaging research and strengthen collaboration across the Helmholtz Association. New this year: additional budget for generalizing imaging solutions. Learn more about these new projects!
Visual to promote the Helmholtz Imaging Conference 2026; image by Thorsten Wiegand from the UFZ called "Tropical Forest on Barro Colorado Island" showing the spatial position, species (color), and size of 87,570 individual trees in a 1000m × 500m section of the tropical forest on Barro Colorado Island, located in the Panama Canal. On the image colorful dots of different sizes are placed in an unstructured way on grey background.
Image: Thomas Wiegand, UFZ | info

Helmholtz Imaging Conference 2026

Experience imaging excellence and engage with the leaders of today and tomorrow. Join us from November 9–13 in Leipzig for the Helmholtz Imaging Conference. Discuss challenges, share breakthroughs, connect with leading experts, and meet like-minded peers. Mark your calendar and stay tuned for updates.
Visual to promote the Helmholtz Imaging Newsletter No. 24; image by Daniela Tirsch from DLR and Björn Schreiner from FU Berlin called "Inca City on Mars" showing Angustus Labyrinthus, a maze-like ridge system near Mars’ south pole.
Image: D. Tirsch, DLR | B. Schreiner, FU Berlin | info

Helmholtz Imaging Newsletter Issue No. 24

Discover what’s new in imaging across Helmholtz and beyond in our final newsletter of the year, from new tools, workshop recordings and a community survey to benchmarking initiatives, event highlights, and upcoming opportunities.

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.


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.

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Highlight Projects


Visual for UNLOCK project TIMELY
Image: Scidraw | info

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.
BSIC 2023 contribution by Sebastian Dupraz (AG Bradke), DZNE; title: Stranger in the mirror
Image: Sebastian Dupraz (AG Bradke), DZNE | info

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.
Visusal for SCHEMA;Metastases represent a significant exacerbation of tumor severity. If one could predict the likelihood of tumors metastasizing, this could inform treatment decisions to avoid or delay this outcome. SCHEMA develops a benchmark dataset of primary tumor samples and metadata on whether the tumor has metastasized at different time points after sampling. With this dataset, a challenge for machine learning scientists will be defined to build prognostic models for likelihood of tumors metastasizing, promoting innovation in prognostic modeling for a clinically relevant task.
Image: Hellmut Augustin, DKFZ (BSIC 2021 contribution) | info

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.

About us


HI Group photo
Image: Knut Sander | info

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.

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