1. What exactly did the Innovation Incubator do?
Leuphana University of Lüneburg considers its Innovation Incubator as a pilote for knowledge-based regional development in Europe. The project promoted the former governmental district of Lüneburg, south of Hamburg. The Incubator invested in ideas and the minds that produce them. The regional economy had the chance to benefit from a broad spectrum of research and development cooperation projects. Teams of researchers conveyed real-life expertise to entrepreneurs. Or science and industry jointly devised entirely new methods, products and services. Projects involving innovative education and training were also part of the Incubator, and the Incubator provided the research infrastructure. The core goals of the Innovation Incubator were:
- To promote the potential for research and development in the region
- To create and secure jobs in knowledge-intensive service sectors
- To provide highly qualified graduates for the job market.
2. How many businesses did benefit from the Innovation Incubator?
Approximately 600 businesses and organizations cooperated with the projects of the Lüneburg Innovation Incubator. These cooperation arrangements secured the transfer of knowledge to the regional economy.
3. Where did the term “Innovation Incubator” come from?
The knowledge-based regional development at Lüneburg implements what the European Commission proclaimed in 2001 as the Lisbon Strategy for sustainable development in Europe. One objective the accompanying documents explicitly identify is the creation of “incubators, which bring together universities, research facilities and enterprises on both the regional and local levels”. This is exactly what the Incubator does: it promotes start-ups in the region and it also assists companies that are already established. In the original meaning of the word "Innovation Incubator" the business development project could also be called a hothouse for ideas.
4. Why did Brussels assist exactly this region?
The European Regional Development Fund financed the majority of the aid to the Innovation Incubator. The ERDF aims to strengthen economic and social cohesion in the European Union by correcting imbalances between its regions. The Lüneburg region was classified as a “convergence” target region in the European funding period 2007 to 2013. These convergence areas are identified by a per-capita gross domestic product below 75% of the average for the European Union (EU-15), which is the reason they need special support.
Based on the results of a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis, the EU Innovation Incubator project had been developed by the Federal State of Lower Saxony in close collaboration with Leuphana University of Lüneburg. In particular, the study revealed that the economic development in the region falls far behind the European average and also that the region shows additional structural weaknesses in the fields of innovation capacity of SMEs, education, and employment.
6. Did the Incubator provide companies with financial support?
No. This EU-sponsored regional-development project promoted companies and organizations through shared research and transfer projects, networks, contact with experts or membership in an entrepreneurs’ network. Funding was not provided. Companies could benefit from custom-fit expertise from the research world.
7. What substantive questions die companies and institutions direct to Leuphana University of Lüneburg?
Research and instruction at Leuphana rests on four pillars: culture, sustainability, management and education. The Innovation Incubator bundled its competencies in these areas of concentration: Digital Media, Health and Sustainable Energy. The cooperations also worked on a large number of cross-sectoral issues including strategic human-resources and corporate development, sales, marketing, environmental chemistry, psychology or cultural research.
8. Since research findings were published anyway, how did cooperation with the Lüneburg Innovation Incubator benefit a company or institution?
Cooperation partners to the Incubator introduced researchers to the very questions that interested them. Once a project was completed, they were provided with the knowledge earlier and in more complete form. This offered participating companies a head start over the competition. Companies also hired research staff from the projects themselves. This was how they bring powerful expertise directly into the company.
9. Did formal concentration on small and medium-sized enterprises inhibit larger companies?
No; the offerings were primarily geared to small and medium-sized enterprises with up to 250 employees. Participation by larger companies was useful and desired, provided cooperation with the researchers in the Incubator was expected to have structural effects for small and medium-sized companies in the project region
10. What cooperation opportunities were there?
The competence tandems as large-scale, international, transdisciplinary research projects addressed innovative business models and the fundamental issues businesses face. Within the smaller-scale research and development projects, there was an opportunity for a one- to two-year cooperation with a smaller team of researchers, with the main focus on short-term usability of project results. In the ongoing innovation and transfer networks, companies engaged in an exchange with experts on topics such as sustainability and human-resources management. At the Graduate School, there were 60 fellowships awarded for Master’s theses and doctoral dissertations with regional economic applications; this research was prepared in direct cooperation with small and medium-sized enterprises. Finally, there were also college studies in the field to address issues of relevance to business; these studies involved students of a variety of concentrations over a shorter period of four to six months.