InnoPRO: Exchange – Effectively scaling research and innovation

Thuringia, Germany, and Europe, with their technology-oriented approach, boast an outstanding research landscape, technological expertise, and a wealth of talent. However, in a world where value creation and innovation are becoming increasingly distributed globally, and countries like China are emerging as powerful players, while the USA is strategically combining capital with platform-based technologies, technological strength and excellent ideas alone are no longer sufficient. Crucially, ideas must be made visible more quickly and implemented early on, new cross-sector partnerships must be established, and alternative avenues for financing and value creation must be rapidly developed. A key lever in this process is the regional development and retention of complete value chains to reduce production costs. This is precisely where numerous fields for research and innovation are opening up.

Especially in Thuringia, we have a wealth of clever ideas and strong research capabilities. However, we increasingly lack the time, knowledge, and appropriate access to increase their visibility beyond the region, establish suitable Contact , and tap into new sources of funding.

In this InnoPRO event, we will take a practical look – in a deliberately interactive way – at two promising methods from the field of open innovation. On the one hand, to actively drive developments forward (push), and on the other hand, to develop innovations specifically from needs and markets (pull).

1. Crowdsourcing for the targeted use of collective intelligence in innovation and financing processes, including for market feedback, visibility, and new cross-sector solutions
2. Matching platforms that translate research results into targeted applications and collaborations.
3. On August 18th, together with experts and participants, we will develop joint approaches to make forward-looking research and innovation projects in Thuringia more visible, find the right implementation partners, and access financial resources more quickly. Concrete implementation projects will also be discussed in this InnoPRO format.

The aim of the event is to better understand the potential and limitations of both approaches and to apply them jointly in implementation projects. How can crowdsourcing and matching platforms be effectively combined and used meaningfully in Thuringia to make access to available knowledge and networking with potential regional partners as effective as possible?