FZI on Board the Exhibition Ship MS Wissenschaft
Interactive exhibition to tour Germany and Austria starting May 7 / Topic of Science Year 2026 is “Medicine of the Future”
Research focus: Digital World
The MS Wissenschaft exhibition ship will set sail through Germany and Austria starting May 7 / First-ever stop in Poland / The topic for Science Year 2026 is “Medicine of the Future” / Featuring the FZI’s PulseCam
Medicine for joint research: Interactive exhibition goes on tour
The MS Wissenschaft will kick off its tour on May 7, 2026. Departing from Berlin, the exhibition ship will sail to Poland and then through Germany and Austria. In total, it will visit around 35 cities, both large and small. On board, the focus is on the future of medicine. Admission is free.
How can Artificial Intelligence help detect bone fractures? Which cancer treatments spare our healthy cells? How can we use health data to treat each person individually? And what does medicine look like when it takes gender differences into account more fully? The exhibition at MS Wissenschaft during the Science Year 2026 – Medicine of the Future explores these questions. Researchers demonstrate how their ideas and work are already shaping the medicine of tomorrow. The exhibition examines medical research on three levels: from the smallest processes within cells, through the interplay of body, mind, and new technologies, to external influences from society and the environment that shape our lives.
Visitors can actively engage with the exhibition through approximately 30 interactive exhibits. For example, they can test medications on an artificial organ, measure their heart rate with a camera, or virtually immerse themselves in the operating room of the future. Visitors are also invited to explore the latest research methods for diseases such as dementia, diabetes, or endometriosis at three stations. The exhibition is recommended for visitors aged twelve and older. Complementing the exhibition is a diverse program of events and numerous workshops for school classes.
PulseCam of the FZI on board
On board the MS Wissenschaft: the FZI’s PulseCam. It demonstrates how vital signs can be measured using standard cameras—completely contact-free. This works because each heartbeat causes minute changes in skin color that are invisible to the human eye. These changes can be detected optically and analyzed using modern image processing and AI-powered analysis. This allows physiological parameters such as heart rate or heart rate variability to be determined without sensors on the skin.
The system opens up new possibilities for telemedicine applications or for monitoring patients in emergency rooms and ambulances by enabling vital signs to be recorded continuously and without contact.
The FZI scientists aim to demonstrate how camera-based systems can provide practical support for medical care in everyday settings. The approach combines modern signal processing with AI-supported image analysis. It is designed to deliver reliable results even under varying conditions, such as changing lighting, different skin types, or movement. Furthermore, the software—currently still in a demo scenario—can visualize a person’s emotional state.
PulsCam originated in the field of camera-based state and context measurement and has been consistently refined at the FZI to enable its use in new domains. A particularly tangible use case for this technology in the field of Digital Healthcare is triage support in the emergency room, immediately upon a patient’s arrival—that is, where saving time can be life-saving. Looking ahead, such low-threshold technical methods can help identify critical situations earlier and reduce workflow burden in high-traffic settings.
The 2026 tour
Departing from Berlin, the ship will travel through Brandenburg to Poland for the first time, where it will dock in Szczecin. After stops along the Baltic Sea coast in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the exhibition ship will travel back through Brandenburg to Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Hesse. This year’s tour of Germany will conclude in Bavaria in mid-September. The ship will then continue on to Austria.
The exhibition ship MS Wissenschaft has been touring Germany annually since 2002. Wissenschaft im Dialog (WiD) organizes the exhibition with the support of the scientific organizations behind WiD and on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space. The exhibits come directly from the research community and are developed and provided by, among others, institutes of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the Helmholtz Association, the Leibniz Association, the Max Planck Society, DFG-funded projects, universities, and other partners such as the FZI Research Center for Information Technology.
The Austrian Federal Ministry for Women, Science, and Research, as well as the Department of Science and Research of the State of Lower Austria, are making the 2026 stay in Austria possible.
Visitor information
Opening Hours: Daily from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. (for school groups starting at 9 a.m.). Information on variations in individual cities is available on the website.
Free guided tours of the exhibition: Daily at 5 p.m.; on weekends and holidays at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. An audio guide in German and English, as well as an audio tour for children ages eight and up, are available free of charge. The exhibition texts are also available in English, Polish, and in simplified language.
Registration for groups and school classes: For groups of ten or more, registration is required at the respective station on ms-wissenschaft.de/tour. Appointments for school classes can be booked starting at 9:00 a.m.
Events on board: ms-wissenschaft.de/de/veranstaltungen/
Information about the exhibition: ms-wissenschaft.de
Information about Science Year 2026 – Medicine of the Future: wissenschaftsjahr.de
Photos of the MS Wissenschaft: ms-wissenschaft.de/de/presse/fotos/