Industry increasingly making use of higher education's research potential
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Companies engaged in research have recognised how useful it is to cooperate closely with higher education institutions. For example, the software firm SAP has established three Campusbased Engineering Centers at German universities, including Dresden Technical University (Foto: Technische Universität Dresden). Click here for a larger image.
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German higher education institutions and corporations operating internationally are working together more closely. The common objective is to promote the transfer of innovation and research results while simultaneously creating sound financial foundations for pure research. Securing the funding of pure research is an essential prerequisite for the generation of novel product ideas and services in the medium to long term. Against this background, RWTH Aachen University and the energy corporation E.ON AG have jointly set up an energy science research institute.
The partners aim to contribute to intensifying international research in the areas of energy efficiency and climate protection. The software company SAP is another example. It already maintains ten so-called Campus-based Engineering Centers - research centres that are located at higher education institutions, thus facilitating close links between pure research and application.
The locations in Germany are Darmstadt, Dresden and Karlsruhe. At Dresden Technical University (TU), the focus in cooperating with SAP is on developing new models of integrated software systems. Examples of activities here include providing input into concrete fields of application, such as manufacturing control and logistics chains, facility management or telematics.
Professor Dr. Alexander Schill, who holds a professorship for computer networks at TU Dresden's Department of Informatics, is convinced that cooperation will have a positive impact: "This innovative cooperation model is linking up fields of application that are new for us with interesting fundamental research approaches, enabling doctoral theses oriented towards industry as well as consortial rojects in a national and European framework. The first joint projects have already been launched at some of the locations. Also, one doctoral project has been successfully completed while others are already at an advanced stage."
Despite this, in terms of their investment in Research and Development (R&D), in a long-term international comparison, German companies fall way behind other European countries, where R&D expenditure is continuously increasing. This was the result of a recent British survey.
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