Startups as cooperation partners of universities

Not only companies, but also universities can benefit from the ideas and developments of young startups. Ambivation employee Anne Schwerin discussed with representatives of universities and research institutions at the Future Conference on September 27 in Leipzig how such cooperation can be structured and what challenges need to be overcome.

When and why does it make sense for startups to cooperate with universities?

There are many good reasons for startups and universities to cooperate. After all, both have a common goal: they want to drive innovation and make a difference. They work to turn research results and clever ideas into products, services or processes that help people in some way and make a positive difference.

At the same time, startups and universities naturally have different interests. The main tasks of universities are education, research and the transfer of knowledge to society. Startups, on the other hand, must focus on commercializing their developments to ensure their long-term viability. Cooperation between startups and universities can only succeed if common, but also different interests in the cooperation are recognized and taken into account by both sides.

From the university perspective, concrete reasons for cooperation with startups include, for example, the desire to advance research topics, to generate research contracts and research funds, to make patents usable, to impart knowledge to students on topics from the startup world, but also to improve the university’s own reputation and, in the long term, even to generate profits. For example, developments that a university and a startup advance together now can lead to the institution receiving an exciting research contract in five years. For startups, universities are attractive collaboration partners that have labs, knowledge and manpower to help drive deen forward.

What are the challenges of startups and universities collaborating?

Universities are usually decades, if not centuries, old institutions. That has an impact on their process design. Startups are quite the opposite. It’s no wonder that different cultures, or completely different approaches, clash when the two types of organizations cooperate. Almost all universities today have a startup service and employees who deal with topics such as innovation, sustainability and digitization.

Nevertheless, many universities lack a strategy to specifically include startups in research and teaching. This may also be due to the fact that the relevant stakeholders have sometimes not even recognized the contribution that young companies could make. Accordingly, the challenges begin with the identification of suitable cooperation partners. Then various legal hurdles and sometimes time-consuming decision-making processes have to be overcome. Financing plays an important role. And finally, both partners are constantly challenged in the process to sound out how much energy they can invest in the cooperation without neglecting other core tasks?

How can the challenges of cooperation between startups and universities be overcome?

“If you want to, you can, and if you have to, you can do it fast” – despite some reservations and dissenting voices, the tenor of the discussion rounds with representatives of universities and research institutions was generally positive. The key is to find the right form of cooperation. In addition to a research project, universities can also take on the role of customers or even investors in startups.

It is also conceivable that founders could be given a teaching assignment and thus contribute their knowledge to the university. In return, experienced scientists can support startups as mentors or provide startups with their patents to jointly drive the development of new products and processes. Placement internships and internship semesters can also accompany a collaborative partnership.

“What was interesting in the discussions on cooperation between startups and universities was how polarized the topic is,” reports Anne Schwerin. “While some participants were of the opinion that our questions were not relevant to them at all, others reported that, despite the narrow legal framework, they collaborate specifically and successfully with partners from the startup scene and that a way can always be found to do so. As is so often the case, this shows that the human factor is decisive.”

Startups that cooperate with university or have a special focus on supporting students and scientists:

NOVUM cooperates with companies and TU Dresden in the field of battery monitoring

SciFlow supports scientists and students in over 80 countries in the collaborative creation of texts

Uniwunder and MLP cooperate on workshops for students