Dye solar cells (DSC) and organic solar cells (OSC) are new technologies with the potential of low cost production methods. Up to now, no commercial products exist. Despite the good progress in the last years, major issues like long-term stability, maximum attainable solar efficiencies and industrial production methods still have not been sufficiently clarified. Reproducible solar cell efficiencies of 7% and3.6 % have been reached on test cells at Fraunhofer ISE for DSC and OSC respectively. Properties, such as transparency and colour for dye based solar cells and mechanical flexibility for organic based solar cells, can be adapted as needed for specific products. This opens up completely new areas of potential application for photovoltaics.  At Fraunhofer ISE, we are investigating a broad range of topics related to the research and future up-scaling of these types of new solar cells.