Yesterday, I was invited by Prof. Dr. Hendrik Brumme, President of Hochschule Reutlingen, to discuss innovation and knowledge transfer between the university and small to mid-sized enterprises in a roundtable format together with other representatives of SMEs in the state of Baden-Württemberg.
After the presentation by Prof. Dr. Brumme, Prof. Dr. Stephan Seiter, member of the Bundestag and spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group for research, technology and innovation, addressed the federal political perspective on the topic. He made it clear how little attention is paid to the issue of financing education and research in comparison to increases in social benefits, while he promised that we all will soon see more impact from the engagement of our German government in regards to increasing the economical power again.
The participants' expectations on working together with the university as well as the perspectives on the upcoming future challenges were then collected in small groups. It became clear that the Reutlingen University has currently little visibility in the region's innovation ecosystem and should strengthen its profile even more, also in international comparison.
Support is sought in relation to the “war of talents” in order to attract the best talents, especially for smaller companies, and thus strengthen the economy in our region.
The initiation and implementation of collaborations should also be as unbureaucratic as possible, as there are no dedicated positions available on the company side to deal with coordination and funding procedures, as is the case with large corporations.
In the end, it became clear that there is a clear desire on both sides to continue this exchange in the future and thus align the teaching content and collaboration offers even better to the needs of SMEs.
Afterwards, we went to the 16th Start-Up Night at Reutlingen University, where three start-ups from the region were able to present themselves on stage ("Get Packed", "Carbonauten" and "Reteach").
Many thanks to Prof. Dr. David Feierabend, Presidential Representative for Entrepreneurship and Transfer, Thomas Rehmet, Head of the Center for Entrepreneurship Reutlingen & Career Center, Niclas Engelmeyer, Project Manager Innovation Networks & Start-up Consulting for organizing and running the event!
#innovation #knowledgetransfer #research #sme #collaboration #entrepreneurship #startups #hochschulereutlingen #reutlingenuniversity
