Technopolis Germany, together with inspire research (Austria) and the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft (Berlin), recently published their final monitoring report of the programme “FH-Impuls”. “FH-impuls”, funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research, is a funding programme aiming at supporting Universities of Applied Sciences (Fachhochschulen) in establishing regional research and innovation partnerships with regional companies, intermediaries and public sector representatives. In total, ten partnerships are funded within the programme. For the monitoring, Technopolis collected and evaluated data since 2017 (e.g. via on-site visits, interviews, online-surveys), presenting now a comprehensive report summarising developments within the partnerships as well as overall effects and impacts of the funding programme. Key findings include, for example: 

• Through both research and innovation projects as well as established research and network management structures – both funded in “FH-Impuls” –  the quality in bilateral and multilateral cooperations between regional partners could be improved, with short-term (e.g. generated follow-up projects) and long-term effects (e.g. established trustful relationships, institutionalised innovation platforms). 
• The network management has proven to be vital to the successful implementation of the partnerships and beneficial to professionalising the research and network management at the universities. 
• (Interdisciplinary) research and the competences of researchers have been strengthened particularly through enhanced networking, follow-up projects, and often expanded research infrastructure. For example, 92% of surveyed professors at the funded universities consider themselves to be better connected within their institutions as a result of “FH-Impuls”. Generally, the significance of (application-oriented) research has increased at the funded universities, resulting e.g. in significantly increased third-party funding.
• The partnerships are of substantial regional importance. For instance, based on the research results generated in “FH-Impuls”, 76% of surveyed industry partners have developed products, services or other outputs or expect to do so in the coming years. 38% of the surveyed partners consider themselves to be more innovative today than two years ago. Furthermore, as a result of the “FH-Impuls” partnerships, 89% of surveyed professors as well as 86% of surveyed partners consider their respective regions to be strengthened as a research and innovation location.

For more results on the “FH-Impuls” monitoring, see the final report (in German only).

Nadia Galati
Principal Consultant

Florian Berger
Managing Partner