The focus of HVG-DGG research is on precompetitive industrial collective research (IGF). Since it would often be very expensive for small and medium sized enterprises to maintain their own research divisons, they may be supported by HVG-DGG. This cooperation is funded through the Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Technologie (BMWi).

The glass industry puts forward research topics of special interest on the HVG-DGG committees. These topics are then dealt with either directly at HVG or at university institutes or institutes of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. In some cases, the problems are so complex that for their solution a co-operation of several institutes is appropriate.

The realisation of the research projects occurs in close coordination with the representatives of the glass industry. Thus, it is guaranteed that the requirements of industrial practice are considered adequately and the results can be applied as soon as possible.

A full report is furnished at the completion of the project and the achieved results are made available in technical lectures and publications.

Besides the research work at the institute of the HVG, also investigations and measurements for the glass industry are carried out. The longstanding experiences from the research work are taken into account in the industry and vice versa, the industrial measurements are an important precondition for practice relevant research projects. The topics of the collective research mainly concern the beginning of the value creation chain, for example in the field of method optimisation (reduction in the use energy and raw materials, environmental measures) or the development of sensors in connection with process optimisation. In many cases university institutes first deal with the topics and then HVG workers continue the project under conditions of industrial practice.

In urgent cases investigation topics will be financed through HVG resources, if there would be too long a forerun for public funding. The results are made available in technical lectures and publications.

Investigations and measurements on behalf of industrial companies are carried out for example in the field of the optimisation of glass melting tanks. Of course, the results are made known only to the ordering party.