Innovation Workshop Dresden – Joint Project: Strengthening the Cooperation of Fundamental Research Institutions and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) - Subproject: Economic Analysis and Evaluation of New Instruments

Content

Entrepreneurial innovation activities are crucial for a country’s successful economic activity. In Germany, the majority of businesses are small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), whose overall innovation activity is declining. The major obstacles to investing in research and development (R&D) for SME are problems in hiring qualified personnel, in implementing an innovation management, and high economic risk. R&D expenditures by publicly financed fundamental research institutions in Germany, by contrast, have been increasing in recent years. Research institutions are increasingly showing efforts to improving the transfer of knowledge to enterprises. However, SME are still underrepresented in these joint R&D activities. The focus of this project lies on SMEs in Dresden and its surrounding area. It aims at implementing strategies for giving SMEs access to the R&D know-how of fundamental research institutions and universities. The project seeks to encourage SMEs to use the existing research infrastructure, qualified personnel and expertise in market development. This project is conducted in cooperation with the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), University of Applied Sciences (HTW) Dresden, and TU Dresden.

Results

The results showed that the greatest obstacles SMEs face in cooperating with basic research institutions are weak financial resources, a lack of skilled workers and a lack of time. The degree of innovation maturity of an SME as well as its age additionally determine which innovation and cooperation hurdles it faces and which forms of cooperation are suitable for it. A further analysis showed that the Dresden region performs similarly to other comparable regions in terms of transfer between basic research institutions and SMEs - the analyzed data show a lively transfer activity. In further project packages, a prototype app was developed to facilitate regional transfer activities, prototype technology scouting was carried out, and cooperation was optimized and promoted through the use of technical equipment from a project partner by SMEs.