Research and research activities at the Open Institute are primarily focused on the field of science and defined by the systematic search for new insights. They are carried out on a disciplinary or interdisciplinary basis, namely in the following departments:
Business, Management & Law
Medicine, Health & Social Science
Humanities
Engineering & IT
Media, Communications & Culture
In accordance with the research needs, the Open Institute is focused on basic research, industrial research, and experimental research. While basic research involves the conducting of original investigations with theoretical and experimental studies in an effort to increase knowledge, industrial research seeks to gather and gain new insights in order to develop new products, procedures or services. Experimental research projects, meanwhile, involve the development of new or improved products, procedures or services based on existing economic or technical knowledge. When implementing research projects, compliance with ethical research standards is a matter of course. Such standards include respect, autonomy, beneficience, justice, informed consent, confidentiality, data protection, and integrity.
The research activities conducted at the Open Institute are usually made accessible to the public through dissertations, monographs, or scientific papers, for which purpose the broad range of publication opportunities provided at the Open Institute can me made use of.