[1][2] The research center is located in Darmstadt and deals with key issues of IT security in the digitization of government, business and society.

The institute conducts research on analysis techniques for large software systems and the design of mechanisms for securing sensitive data.

The DRZ had merged in 1973 with other research institutions in this field to form the Society for Mathematics and Data Processing (German: Gesellschaft für Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung (GMD)).

In 2001, Claudia Eckert, who also headed Fraunhofer SIT from 2001 to 2011, was appointed Professor of Information Security at TU Darmstadt.

In response to Buchmann and Waidners efforts, the European Center for Security and Privacy by Design (EC SPRIDE) was founded in 2011.

CASED and EC SPRIDE were part of LOEWE, the research excellence programm of the state Hesse.

In 2015, CASED and EC SPRIDE merged into Center for Research in Security and Privacy (CRISP).

[17] In 2016, the Federal Ministry of Finance decided to make the region around Darmstadt the pre-eminent hub for the digital transformation of the economy.

[18] Researchers at ATHENE played a major role in establishing the field of post quantum cryptography internationally.