Bringing more good ideas into application and thus to companies and people: As a new component of its transfer and innovation promotion programme, the Federal Government intends to promote social and technological innovations in the future by setting up the German Agency for Transfer and Innovation (DATI). As an innovation agency, DATI will be based in Erfurt.

DATIpilot: Sprints and communities

In July 2023, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) launched the DATIpilot funding guideline, which is a pilot measure preceding the establishment of DATI. It supports innovative ideas for transfer projects in the various regions of Germany. DATIpilot met with great interest right from the start: Almost 3,000 project outlines for innovation sprints (Module 1) and 480 applications for innovation communities (Module 2) were received.

An innovation community connects scientific institutions – HAW, universities or research institutions – as well as stakeholders from business, society and administration on a specific innovation topic. The aim of the community is to strategically establish or expand research and transfer activities on this topic and to establish the necessary partnerships.

We are looking for research-based innovation communities with high innovation potential and recognisable unique selling points in their topic that want to give a significant boost to the development of their community with new approaches. Communities are characterised by an open partner structure, open innovation approaches and a high degree of self-organisation.

Almost 500 project ideas submitted

An innovation community receives a maximum budget of 5 million euros from the BMBF, which can be used over a period of four years. 480 outlines were submitted for the three-stage selection process. An independent jury of twelve experts from science, industry and society assessed and evaluated around 80 of the most promising outlines and ultimately recommended 20 innovation communities to the BMBF for funding.

These included three alliances that are relevant to the bio-based economy. The three innovation communities with relevance for the bioeconomy in a compact overview (external links only available in German):