Lüneburg Innovation Incubator

The idea: Strengthen the regional economy with research

“A bree­ding ground for ide­as” – this is how the Lüne­burg In­no­va­ti­on In­cu­ba­tor could be de­scri­bed. The In­no­va­ti­on In­cu­ba­tor was a re­se­arch-dri­ven pro­ject for re­gio­nal de­ve­lop­ment. With this pro­ject, Leu­pha­na Uni­ver­si­ty of Lüne­burg and the Ger­man fe­deral sta­te of Lo­wer Sa­x­o­ny streng­the­ned the re­se­arch and eco­no­mic po­ten­ti­al of the for­mer go­vern­men­tal Lüne­burg district. From Au­gust 2009 un­til July 2015 sci­ence and in­dus­try worked to­ge­ther. The fo­cus was main­ly on three fiel­ds: di­gi­tal me­dia, health and sustainable en­er­gy.

45 Projekte werden von 14. August 2009 bis 31. Juli 2015 im Inkubator umgesetzt, aktuell von rund 250 Wissenschaftlern.

As a re­sult a nas­cent re­gio­nal in­no­va­ti­on sys­tem has emer­ged, the Or­ga­ni­sa­ti­on for Eco­no­mic Co-ope­ra­ti­on and De­ve­lop­ment (OECD) ack­now­led­ged the pro­ject’s achie­ve­ments in the stu­dy „Les­sons lear­ned from the Lüne­burg In­no­va­ti­on In­cu­ba­tor". In­no­va­ti­on play­ers were in­no­va­ti­ve busi­ness start-ups, new net­works for re­se­arch and know­ledge sharing, co­ope­ra­ti­ons with in­ter­na­tio­nal com­pa­nies and NGOs and a sustainable in­fra­struc­tu­re for con­ti­nuing the­se ac­tivi­ties. Mo­re­o­ver, the In­cu­ba­tor hel­ped to fur­ther im­pro­ve on Leu­pha­na’s edu­ca­tio­nal ap­proach; es­pe­cial­ly Leu­pha­na Pro­fes­sio­nal School and Di­gi­tal School crea­ted a pionee­ring learning en­vi­ron­ment. Click here to read the complete study by the OECDS 


More than 550 ad­di­tio­nal sci­en­tists were re­crui­ted by the In­cu­ba­tor. A to­tal of 45 in­no­va­ti­ve pro­jects with about 600 part­ners was im­ple­men­ted. Sup­port for the es­ta­blish­ment of more than 60 in­no­va­ti­ve busi­ness start-ups was pro­vi­ded. About 420 jobs were se­cu­red or crea­ted in the re­gi­on. More than 80 the­ma­tic events in­vol­ved more than 8 300 lo­cal en­tre­pre­neurs, em­ployees and de­ve­lop­ment ac­tors. 

In June 2015, at the In­cu­ba­tor’s of­fi­ci­al clo­sing ce­re­mo­ny at Lüne­burg, the Pri­me Mi­nis­ter of Lo­wer Sa­x­o­ny Ste­phan Weil, the Chair­man of the Ma­na­ging Board of the Ger­man Fe­deral Em­ploy­ment Agen­cy Frank-Jürgen Wei­se and the De­pu­ty Se­creta­ry Ge­ne­ral of the Or­ga­ni­sa­ti­on for Eco­no­mic Co-ope­ra­ti­on and De­ve­lop­ment Ste­fan Kap­fe­rer ack­now­led­ged the In­cu­ba­tor’s achie­ve­ments in buil­ding know­ledge bridges bet­ween sci­ence and eco­no­my.

Video Series: How did economy and society benefit?

What ide­as, me­thods, pro­ducts and ser­vices have been de­ve­l­o­ped wi­t­hin the In­no­va­ti­on In­cu­ba­tor? Who does be­ne­fit from them? And how do things go on? En­tre­pre­neurs, foun­ders, re­pre­sen­ta­ti­ves of as­so­cia­ti­ons and scho­lars an­s­wer the­se ques­ti­ons in the vi­deo se­ries “In­no­va­ti­on In­cu­ba­tor: Voices from the Re­gi­on”.

Digitale Medien

Mathias Fuchs

The city tour game “Lüne­burg 3D” of­fers new per­spec­tives on the old Han­sea­tic city. Ma­thi­as Fuchs, su­per­vi­sor of the In­cu­ba­tor pro­ject “Art and Ci­vic Me­dia” and ma­na­ger of the in­ter­na­tio­nal ga­mes con­fe­rence Di­GRA 2015, talks about the game’s de­ve­lop­ment.

Burkhardt Funk

How can com­pa­nies op­ti­mi­ze their se­arch en­gi­ne ad­ver­ti­sing? In col­la­bo­ra­ti­on with the lo­cal agen­cy web-netz, Burk­hardt Funk, vice pre­si­dent of the Leu­pha­na, and his co-workers came up with an an­s­wer to this ques­ti­on wi­t­hin the In­cu­ba­tor pro­ject “SEM-A2“.

Jessica Zeller

A foun­der nee­ds sup­port. Foun­der Jes­si­ca Zel­ler re­counts how her young com­pa­ny was sup­por­ted by the In­cu­ba­tor when star­ting Ed­ki­mo. And she ex­plains the idea be­hind Ed­ki­mo: a feed­back app for school les­sons.

Andreas Ebert

First the­re was an idea: short ex­pla­na­to­ry vi­de­os made with stop trick ani­ma­ti­on that sim­pli­fy com­plex to­pics. Foun­der An­dre­as Ebert re­counts how this idea tur­ned into the Lüne­burg com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons agen­cy ex­plaini­ty with the help of the In­cu­ba­tor.

Health

Hanne Thiart

Ef­fec­tive help by mou­se click: the re­se­arch group GET.ON de­ve­l­o­ped 11 on­line health trai­nings and 2 mo­bi­le apps. Stu­dies have shown their ef­fec­tiven­ess to prevent and tre­at men­tal ill­nes­ses, says Han­ne Thi­art, cer­ti­fied psy­cho­lo­gist and foun­der of the GET.ON in­sti­tu­te.

Thomas Lötsch

Tou­rism and health­ca­re do not fit to­ge­ther? But they do. Tho­mas Lötsch from the Eco­no­mic De­ve­lop­ment Agen­cy re­counts how vi­sit­ing pro­fes­sor Mo­ni­ka Rul­le hel­ped him to en­han­ce the pro­fi­le of the health tou­rism sec­tor in Cux­ha­ven.

Till Beiwinkel

“In the fu­ture, web-ba­sed health trai­nings will be an in­te­gral part of the Ger­man health care sys­tem”, pre­dicts re­se­ar­cher Till Bei­win­kel. The In­cu­ba­tor pro­ject “In­te­gra­ted Care” eva­lua­ted a pro­gram for preven­ti­on and the­ra­py of the Har­burg No­ve­go AG.

Sustainable Energy

Jörg Krüger

Tar­get groups, re­sour­ces, risks – the busi­ness exe­cu­ti­ve of the Cel­le IT spe­cia­list Del­ta plus, Jörg Krüger, ana­ly­zed the busi­ness mo­del of the geo­ther­mal pro­duct Geo­Cool in co­ope­ra­ti­on with re­se­ar­chers from the In­cu­ba­tor. He found the re­se­ar­chers of the pro­ject “Sustainable Busi­ness Mo­dels” to be “ex­tre­me­ly prac­tical”.

Holger Dannenberg

“From eco-freak to sustaina­bi­li­ty pioneer”: busi­ness exe­cu­ti­ve of Werk­haus, Hol­ger Dan­ne­berg, dealt with is­su­es of sustaina­bi­li­ty in SMEs in se­veral work­shops. Now his com­pa­ny pu­blis­hes a re­port on sustaina­bi­li­ty and pur­su­es a new com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on stra­te­gy.

Siegfried Ziegert

A raw ma­te­ri­als stra­te­gy for re­gio­nal com­pa­nies: Sieg­fried Zie­gert, di­rec­tor of the Exe­cu­ti­ve De­part­ment of Eco­no­mic De­ve­lop­ment, Coun­ty of Os­ter­holz, and co­or­di­na­tor of AR­TIE, in­tro­du­ces the net­work “Raw Ma­te­ri­al Sour­ce:Pro­duct”. The In­no­va­ti­on In­cu­ba­tor is one of the in­itia­tors of the pro­ject.

Colette Bomnüter

How can craft busi­nes­ses be­co­me more sustainable? Colet­te Bomnüter of the Cham­ber of Crafts Braun­schweig-Lüne­burg-Sta­de and the Leu­pha­na Uni­ver­si­ty of Lüne­burg loo­ked into this is­sue. The me­thod they came up with is now being of­fe­red as part of the con­sul­ting.

Oliver Opel

In­cu­ba­tor re­se­ar­chers de­ve­l­o­ped an op­ti­mi­zed heat sto­r­a­ge sys­tem: the “Ther­mal Bat­te­ry”. It sa­tis­fies the de­mand for warm wa­ter and heat in sin­gle-fa­mi­ly or mul­ti-fa­mi­ly ho­mes more cost-ef­fec­tive­ly and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly-fri­end­ly and it re­qui­res less space than tra­di­tio­nal sys­tems. En­vi­ron­men­tal re­se­ar­cher and foun­der Oli­ver Opel ex­plains the re­a­sons why.

Heide Oberbeck

Does a sto­r­a­ge quar­ter in Rit­ter­hu­de make sen­se? Le­gal, tech­ni­cal and busi­ness ex­perts dealt with this ques­ti­on wi­t­hin the In­cu­ba­tor pro­ject “En­ER­gi­oN” on be­half of the Os­ter­holz pu­blic uti­li­ty com­pa­ny. “The Leu­pha­na Uni­ver­si­ty is es­pe­cial­ly good at brin­ging to­ge­ther all the sta­ke­hol­ders”, says Hei­de Ober­beck from the pu­blic uti­li­ty com­pa­ny. Ac­cor­ding to her, that is a spe­cial com­pe­tence: “For the most part, in­ves­ti­ga­ti­ons only take into ac­count one per­spec­tive.”

Joachim Schwerdtfeger

Cor­ro­si­on in pipes and wa­ter sys­tems cau­ses im­men­se costs for in­dus­tri­al com­pa­nies. In­cu­ba­tor re­se­ar­chers and the sen­sor ma­nu­fac­tu­rer Fra­na­tech worked to­ge­ther to de­ve­lop the ear­ly warning sys­tem “Fe­Quan” to pre­dict the­se kinds of da­mages. Com­pa­nies may save up to 25 per­cent of their costs for wa­ter tre­at­ment, ex­plain Joa­chim Schwerdtfe­ger and Mi­chel Mas­son from Fra­na­tech.

Clemens Mader

Cle­mens Ma­der, vi­sit­ing pro­fes­sor for re­gio­nal en­vi­ron­ment and sustaina­bi­li­ty, de­ve­l­o­ped sustaina­bi­li­ty stra­te­gies in co­ope­ra­ti­on with the juice com­pa­ny Vo­el­kel, the bak­e­ry Din­kel­meis­ter, and the Cham­ber of Crafts Braun­schweig-Lüne­burg-Sta­de.

Further Results

Caroline Thiem

Con­ta­mi­na­ted grass from flood plains of the Elbe Ri­ver is tur­ned into fer­ti­li­zer: a pro­cess that is enab­led by a new me­thod. Eco­lo­gist Ca­ro­li­ne Thiem ex­plains how the me­thod came into being wi­t­hin the In­cu­ba­tor pro­ject “Ac­tiva­ted Biochar”.

Ina Wenhold

Good lea­dership, em­ployee sa­tis­fac­tion, em­ploy­er attrac­tiven­ess: the re­se­ar­chers of the net­work “Per­for­mance Ma­nage­ment in SMEs” con­duc­ted two em­ployee sur­veys on be­half of Ina Wen­hold, hu­man re­sour­ce ma­na­ger of the eco-mail-or­der com­pa­ny De­er­berg.

Bernd Passier

“A dri­ving force be­hind the de­ve­lop­ment of the re­gio­nal job mar­ket”: Bernd Pas­sier, chair­man of the board of the Agen­cy for Em­ploy­ment Lüne­burg-Uel­zen, eva­lua­tes the pro­vi­sio­nal re­sults of the Lüne­burg In­no­va­ti­on In­cu­ba­tor.

Bettina Roggmann

In co­ope­ra­ti­on with the In­cu­ba­tor pro­ject KIM, Aga­then­burg Cast­le pre­sen­ted the art ex­hi­bi­ti­on “Some Is­su­es of His­to­ry” as part of the Da­ni­el Fre­se Pri­ze 2013. It was an en­coun­ter of re­gio­nal and in­ter­na­tio­nal art. “This ap­proach is unusu­al and gi­ves lo­cal ar­tists the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be re­co­gni­zed in­ter­na­tio­nal­ly”, says Bet­ti­na Rogg­mann from Aga­then­burg Cast­le.

Michael Zeinert

More than 350 com­pa­nies from the district of the Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­mer­ce Lüne­burg-Wolfs­burg teamed up with the In­cu­ba­tor. Mi­cha­el Zei­nert, chief exe­cu­ti­ve of the Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­mer­ce, points out in what ways the com­pa­nies have be­ne­fit­ted from the col­la­bo­ra­ti­on.

Joachim True

Eli­mi­na­ting was­te – with this goal in mind the la­ser ma­nu­fac­tu­rer LAP im­ple­men­ted “Ope­ra­ti­ons Ex­cel­lence”, a me­thod that was de­ve­l­o­ped in the In­cu­ba­tor to op­ti­mi­ze pro­ces­ses. Thus, pro­duc­tion ma­na­ger Joa­chim True was able to re­du­ce the stock by 500.000 Euro in a short pe­ri­od of time so that now the­re is 25 per­cent more sto­r­a­ge space.

Timo Bleckwedel

The gui­de “Co­ope­ra­ti­ve Day Care For Com­pa­nies” ex­plains step-by-step how com­pa­nies can be­co­me more sui­ta­ble for child­ren and why it is be­ne­fi­ci­al for them to do so. Edu­ca­ti­on re­se­ar­cher Timo Bleck­we­del de­si­gned the gui­de wi­t­hin the In­cu­ba­tor pro­ject “Co­ope­ra­ti­ve Day Care For Com­pa­nies”.

Jan Orthey

“When peop­le spend their mo­ney on lo­cal busi­nes­ses, they help their com­mu­ni­ty to thri­ve”, says Jan Orthey. In col­la­bo­ra­ti­on with the in­no­va­ti­on net­work “Sustainable SMEs”, the ow­ner of Lüne­buch – Buch­hand­lung am Markt re­fi­ned stra­te­gies for the lo­cal re­tail in­dus­try.

Christine Kruppa

What ex­act­ly ma­kes a sustainable pro­duct? Chris­ti­ne Krup­pa from the or­ga­nic bak­e­ry Bohl­se­ner Mühle tack­led is­su­es like this wi­t­hin the net­work “Sustainable SMEs”. In this con­text, she made use­ful con­tacts with other com­pa­nies and sustaina­bi­li­ty re­se­ar­chers.

Carsten Wille

More than 400 con­sul­ta­ti­ons, over 60 Start-ups: Cars­ten Wil­le, head of the Start-up Ser­vice and start-up con­sul­tant, out­li­nes the in­te­rim re­sults of the In­cu­ba­tor. The ex­pan­si­on of the Start-up Ser­vice was great­ly sup­por­ted by the In­no­va­ti­on In­cu­ba­tor.