Contact

Simon Schmitt

Head Communication & Media Relations
Science Editor
Communication & Media Relations
s.schmittAthzdr.de
Phone: +49 351 260 3400

Online Annual Report 2012

Knowledge and Technology Transfer

New Transfer Strategy / More Patents and Licenses

Plasmabasierte Ionenimplantation“The positive trend of our revenues from licenses and patents continues,” rejoices the HZDR’s Head of Technology Transfer, Dr. Björn Wolf. At the end of 2012, the research center had 24 current license agreements with commercial enterprises as well as about 200 additional ones with scientific institutions; among those were above all agreements for free software licenses. Five new license agreements with companies were concluded. The revenues from licenses amounted to Euro 140,000 – a significant increase when compared to 2011. In addition, 16 new patents were filed; a plus of four compared to the previous year.

So that the positive trend continues in these sectors while other transfer activities are expanded further, the HZDR Board of Directors adopted a new transfer strategy last year. It contains diverse measures; many of which have already been launched. For example, there are a number of innovation managers at the research center. They are primarily financed through third party funds, support the scientists in applying for and implementing subsidized and industrial projects, and maintain contacts with customers. The new strategy, though, also pursues the objective of sensitizing and qualifying more researchers for technology transfer, expanding the network with partners to utilize the research results, and promoting the establishment of the HZDR Innovation GmbH corporation, a subsidiary of the research center.

For a number of topics, the founding of independent companies is still pending. For example, the HZDR supported five different spin-off projects last year, which also included the procurement of subsidies. The projects focus on the production of short pulse lasers (“one micron”), plastic electroplating (“BioBASE”), multiphase flow sensors (“Flowsens”), microporous metal filters (“i3membrane”) as well as cryofluorescence spectroscopy.