All StartUpLabs at a Glance
A total of 91 universities of applied sciences (UAS) submitted start-up concepts in March 2019 as part of StartUpLab@FH funding. The aim of these concepts was to establish spaces for ideas and creativity and to promote the entrepreneurial spirit at the universities: All members of the UAS are to be given the opportunity to check if their ideas are suited for founding a company. 35 UAS were successful with their start-up concepts. After an intensive preparation and planning period, the UAS began implementing them, with the first labs starting in spring 2020.
For all UAS, the focus in the first few months is on setting up and furnishing the premises. Later, elements such as workshop courses or creative workshops are added, as well as the support of individuals or teams with innovative ideas. In addition, the StartUpLabs also conduct accompanying events to create a creative, inspiring atmosphere at the UAS - for example hackathons, start-up barbecues or start-up talks. Work to anchor the StartUpLabs in the transfer strategy of the universities, to integrate it into the regional start-up ecosystem and to ensure the continuity of the project beyond the duration of the project is carried out more in the background.
Visit the StartUpLabs at Facebook or Instagram to find out more about their activities.
Match Box (FH Aachen)
Start: April 2020
The FH Aachen is the only university in the region with a design department that has specialists for subjects such as product and communication design. The aim of the StartUpLab at the FH Aachen is to bring together students and staff interested in founding their own company in cross-departmental project teams, with each project team being supported by a member of the design department. This ensures that ideas for new services or products are taking design and customer benefit aspects into account even during the development process, and that functional, aesthetic, economic and ecological perspectives are considered very early on. Innovative product ideas are thus closely tailored to market requirements and customer needs from the outset.
starTHAB (TH Aschaffenburg)
Start: March 2020
The VentureLab is to be established as a central contact point for creative conceptual discussions on the development of new products and business models. A meeting of the entrepreneurial potential of the TH Aschaffenburg will take place at this location in regular events. The technical implementation of demonstrators is to be carried out in cooperation with the laboratories of the Technical University of Aschaffenburg, especially from disciplines with particularly strong research, such as automotive, energy efficiency, intelligent systems, automation and materials and the rapidly growing field of computer science, within a hub-and-spoke approach.
Find out more:
IDiA (HTW Berlin)
Start: July 2021
Groundbreaking ideas cannot be derived from market analyses or forecasts. They arise where opportunities meet a prepared mind. Therefore, the IDiA project at HTW Berlin focuses on establishing of central, open, and inviting experimentation and workspaces. They offer students and members of the UAS the infrastructure and advice necessary for developing ideas and create occasions for interdisciplinary networking, backed by an extensive event programme.
IDiA stands for “Ideas in Action” and symbolises the aspiration of our project in two respects:
- We actively support the emergence and validation of start-up ideas
- and to this end especially promote those ideas that contribute to solving the diverse challenges of our time, such as the climate and biodiversity crisis, modern work, digitalisation and many more.
ResiATEBZ (EBZ Business School Bochum)
Start: June 2021
The “RESI” - Real Estate StartUp Incubator - at the EBZ Business School, which specializes in the real estate industry, is to establish itself as a start-up centre. The concept is to be able to subject start-up ideas for the housing and real estate industry to a realistic proof of concept more quickly and easily by setting up a “real estate simulator”. In addition, the existing networks in the real estate industry and the PropTech start-up scene are focused and supplemented at the RESI StartUpLab in order to closely link start-up projects at the university with the industry at an early stage. In addition to idea scouting at the university and in the industry, as well as the matching of ideas and start-up teams, demand-oriented coaching, consulting, and mentoring for and with the start-ups will be implemented together with partners from the real estate industry and the start-up and business development sectors.
FreiRAUM@HSB (HS Bremen)
Start: October 2021
FreiRAUM@HSB is a central place for innovation and start-up projects of all kinds at Hochschule Bremen (HSB). Makerspace, co-working space, and event space provide an open, interdisciplinary, and cross-faculty creative space where students, lecturers, and employees of the university can try things out, exchange ideas, and network. Through a variety of events on the topics of innovation and start-ups and structured advisory services, users are sensitised to the topic of start-ups and learn the necessary skills to put their own start-up ideas into practice. At FreiRAUM@HSB, ideas can be quickly built into simple models and prototypes so that potential users can precisely understand, experience, and evaluate the idea – which is essential for its further development. The goals of the project are to raise awareness of the topic of start-ups, to promote technical and social innovation, and to sustainably anchor a start-up culture at the HSB.
Find out more: Information about FreiRAUM on the HSB website (in German)
StartupCampus (TH Deggendorf)
Start: April 2020
The profile of the Deggendorf University of Technology (THD) has developed further in recent years through the establishment of Technology Campus (TC) as satellites and research centres in the neighbouring rural area and the expansion of applied research and development. As a dynamic and entrepreneurially thinking university, the THD cooperates closely with regional players from business and administration in teaching, further education and research. This is an optimal basis for reaching the next level in the thematic focus Start-Up and for expanding the offer, which until now has mainly addressed students, both for THD staff and for start-ups beyond teaching in and together with the region.
Find out more:
- Press release of the THD from 30 July 2020 (in German)
- Press release of the THD about the official opening of the StartUpLab on 28 April 2021 (in German)
StartUp@SQUArE (FH Dortmund)
Start: July 2020
The central aim of StartUp@SQUArE is to bundle all existing and future activities for the promotion and support of start-ups in one structure. This bundling of activities, the central spatial location and simultaneous anchoring in a professorial committee contributes significantly to making the topic of start-up more visible and tangible at the FH Dortmund. At the same time, the impulses in the direction of organisational development are set here in order to advance the UAS on its way to becoming a founding university of applied sciences. The interdisciplinary project management team contributes to the internalisation and further development of entrepreneurial thinking and acting with foundation-related (extra-)curricular offers. The aim of the activities is to increase the number of business start-ups from within the FH Dortmund, as these start-ups provide an impulse for the region.
LabX (HTW Dresden)
Start: August 2021
LabX is an interdisciplinary ideas workshop for creative, conceptual work, prototyping, and the testing of demonstrators to promote spin-offs in start-ups. LabX expands the support services and infrastructure available to founders at the HTW Dresden. The StartUpLab comes into play in the pre-start-up phase and provides concrete technology-oriented support services. Its activities primarily concentrate on services with a technical and organisational focus for the realisation of proof of principles for later start-up ideas. Thus, prerequisites are created to anchor innovative and entrepreneurial thinking as well as scientific innovation and entrepreneurial spirit in the individual faculties.
StartUpLab-Net (HNE Eberswalde)
Start: August 2021
With the StartupLab, the start-up activities of the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE) are picking up speed. Equipped in a modern and multi-sensory way, the StartupLab offers a creative area, a co-working area, and a technology area on more than 200 square metres and thus plenty of space for the development of creative and innovative new (start-up) ideas.
In cooperation with regional partners, new research and start-up spaces are being established that promote creativity and innovation. Thus, the start-up support structures at HNEE are to be better networked within the region and to become oriented towards practical applications. New decentralised innovation locations make it possible to pursue start-up activities in the region in suitable creative environments with direct contact to practice. Hitherto, HNEE members have mainly received theoretical support for their start-up ideas, but now they can try them out in practice in a working environment designed for this purpose, both inside and outside the HNEE.
Find out more: Website of the startup centre at HNEE
SpacesMeetSpirit@HE (HS Esslingen)
Start: March 2021
SpacesMeetSpirit@HE fills the gap of the previously unaddressed early idea generation and pre-foundation phase as well as networking at Hochschule Esslingen (HE). The HE StartUpLab is to provide research and innovation spaces (physical, virtual, financial). By providing start-up support services with low-threshold and phase-appropriate qualification and awareness measures, a positive attitude towards novelty, creativity and fault tolerance is created among all HE stakeholders. The aim is also to bring the broad spectrum of HE competencies to the public. Synergies from existing offerings at HE and external partners are realized and substantially expanded so that innovations and spin-offs based on them thrive in an open and transdisciplinary exchange.
TeStUp (HS Flensburg)
Start: April 2020
The Flensburg University of Applied Sciences plays a key role in the regional start-up ecosystem of Flensburg / southern Denmark and already has a well-functioning, networked structure in start-up support. The cross-border cooperation VentureWærft is particularly noteworthy here. Nevertheless, there is a lack of start-ups, especially in the field of technological products. This is where the TeStUp project of Flensburg University of Applied Sciences comes in. In order to increase the quality of start-ups in the field of technological products, existing laboratories are being expanded and new laboratories set up in core areas. In addition, the TeStUp project improves the networking of the start-up topic with teaching and research and increases the diversity of start-up teams with regard to gender, participating departments and organisation (e.g. non-professional scientific staff).
Find out more: TeStUp website
StartUpSpace@HFU (HS Furtwangen)
Start: April 2021
How do I get from a start-up idea to the first real prototype? This path is often arduous for people interested in founding a company and is associated with high costs. The StartUpSpace@HFU at Furtwangen University (HFU) specifically addresses this point and provides maker spaces for physical and virtual prototyping to accompany and promote the implementation of innovative business ideas at HFU. The maker spaces cover digital modelling, electronics and mechanics, and additive manufacturing. An additional maker space for user experience helps to implement the start-up ideas in a customer-oriented manner and to constantly test and validate them through agile product development methods. The StartUpSpace@HFU brings together the three HFU campuses with their departments of engineering, economics, computer science, health, and digital media and promotes interdisciplinary exchange for the development of innovative products and services.
#BeLim (WH Gelsenkirchen / Bocholt / Recklinghausen)
Start: April 2020
The aim of the #BeyondLimits start-up concept at the WH (Westfälische Hochschule) is to establish a scientific entrepreneurial spirit in the university, to increase the sensitivity for start-ups in general and to significantly increase the actual number of start-ups. The program KickStart@WH is the linchpin in this process and for the first time enables the accelerated throughput of all phases up to foundation in only six months. Since start-up talents are brought into direct contact with entrepreneurial role models and potential customers, the probability increases that a newly developed solution will be able to meet a concrete demand on the market and, ideally, to start a business with the first order in hand. Creative movers and shakers as well as future entrepreneurs are given a home in the StartUpLabs, which, like the KickStart@WH program runs, are profiled in terms of content with potential-rich future topics.
MINTX (HS Hannover)
Start: August 2022
The Hochschule Hannover - University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HsH) is founding an innovative start-up laboratory for STEM ideas at the Bismarckstraße location, starting in the winter semester of 2022/23. Small, interdisciplinary teams of students from the HsH will develop practical solutions to STEM issues with a high novelty value. The teams are in direct contact with companies as early as the discovery phase and are closely supported by start-up professionals and professors. This results in professionally tailored STEM start-up ideas with excellent practical applicability. The students benefit from taking the founder’s perspective or from getting the chance to work in the accompanying company. The companies, in turn, benefit from early contact with the founders and their ideas and can also approach the Lab with their own questions in order to recruit teams for their topic.
MINTX is linked to the established NEXSTER Entrepreneurship Centre at the Hochschule Hannover.
Find out more: NEXSTER Entrepreneurship-Center at the Hochschule Hannover
StartUpLab@FHof (HS Hof)
Start: April 2020
In the past years the Hof University of Applied Sciences (HS Hof) has in many places created very good conditions in teaching, consulting, support and culture for start-ups as well as an excellent image for university members who are interested in start-ups, resulting in good successes. In the current Gründungsradar 2018 the HS Hof is ranked 14th nationwide in the category for small universities. Numerous other scientific and technological start-ups can be added if an innovation culture and founder mentality is created in the coming generation of students by means of a targeted, early foundation teaching and training in the methods of design thinking, if subject areas are opened up for cooperation and the prerequisites for a founder-friendly test environment in a FabLab or Maker Space are created.
StartUp@EAH (EAH Jena)
Start: August 2020
The StartUpLab is a central building block for an integrative business incubator that is to be established for Jena and the region. For the first time, it will provide the necessary earmarked areas for start-up projects in the pre-foundation phase, in which all previous and future support services offered by the university will be bundled. The focus here is particularly on company start-ups in six specific fields of technology, which embody the central pillars of the EAH's teaching and research profile and are also of very high relevance for Jena as a business location: Optics/photonics, medical technology, health and care, precision engineering, transformation and digitalization technology and environmental technology.
Find out more: StartUp@EAH website
StartUpLabs@HS KO (HS Koblenz)
Start: August 2022
Starting a company means more than just implementing a business idea. It is an act of design to improve the world around us and bring about positive change. To be able to achieve this, the "StartUpLab" project first identifies innovative ideas through various channels within the university (SCOUTING), develops them in design thinking workshops (IDEATION), then turns them into prototypes (PROTOTYPING), and finally presents and validates them at various events (INTERACTION).
The two StartUpLabs at Koblenz University of Applied Sciences at the Koblenz and Remagen campuses offer university members the opportunity to develop their ideas and prototypes in a modern, creative environment and to realise them with the support of experienced mentors. They round off the university's start-up offerings and provide a place for self-realisation and interdisciplinary exchange across departments. Through event formats such as pitch events, start-up barbecues, or poster and prototype exhibitions, we create an exchange with other founders as well as with external contacts such as companies and other multipliers.
Close cooperation with experienced mentors and the wide range of events create an ideal environment for expanding skills and successfully implementing ideas.
Find out more: Information about the StartUpLab on the Koblenz University of Applied Sciences website (in German)
StartUpLab@TH Köln (TH Köln)
Start: April 2020
With the StartUpLab, a central location for start-up activities will be created at the TH Köln. In addition to its function as a prototype workshop (Maker Space), it is an open, interdisciplinary and cross-faculty physical meeting place, a centre for university members and a point of contact for external contacts and networks. It spatially integrates the university-wide start-up service, a coworking space, an event room and the mini incubator of the Faculty of Plant, Energy and Machine Systems. This creates an interdisciplinary environment for students and staff in all phases of the start-up process - from students who test their own ideas during their studies, to those who are willing to set up their own company, to young founders.
Find out more: StartUpLab@TH Köln website
SPACE (HS Mannheim)
Start: April 2020
As part of the project, the StartUpLab SPACE is to be created as a coworking space for innovation and entrepreneurship. This includes spaces for working and experimenting with open innovations and digitalisation. The following low-threshold services will be offered to all university staff:
- Raising awareness through regular events such as demo days, founding meetings, pitch events, etc.
- Capacity building for students through innovation and entrepreneurship events in order to inspire students to learn “without additional effort” about the way they work, to realise their ideas and to develop them as founders.
- Project support through pragmatic advice on setting up a business and coaching
Special methodological competence and prototyping opportunities are to be created for flagship projects in the field of digitalisation. This project is intended to institutionalise support for start-ups at the level of university administration. The project thus fits in with the development process already mentioned in the university’s structural and development plan.
Find out more: SPACE@HS Mannheim website
Precelerator (HS München)
Start:June 2020
The University of Applied Sciences Munich (hm) with its Entrepreneurship Centre, the Strascheg Centre for Entrepreneurship (SCE), aims to develop and establish a concept for the low-threshold promotion of innovative students and academics in the long term: the Precelerator @HM programme. Structurally, the Precelerator programme precedes the existing start-up funding. In the sense of a “gym” for innovation and entrepreneurship, it creates a new low-threshold link between curricular teaching formats, the scientific activities of the university and the existing promotion of medium- and high-level start-ups. The core of the Precelerator programme is an interaction platform consisting of the five activity areas Connect, Play, Train, Create and Make, which systematically supports the further development of ideas and research findings towards the market.
Founders Space (HS Neu-Ulm)
Start: June 2021
Entrepreneurial thinking and action have high priority at Neu-Ulm University of Applied Sciences (HNU). As an international business school for innovation, entrepreneurship and digital transformation, the university has already anchored start-up-related modules in numerous study programme modules. With the StartUpLab, the topic of setting up a business is now being further promoted at HNU: The project is intended to create sustainable infrastructural conditions for students to experience the topics of business models, innovation management, business planning, marketing and communication, and business development and management. To this end, the existing Innovation Space at HNU will be expanded to include a Founders Lab and a coworking area. Linking the infrastructure with teaching and services, the HNU start-up coaching process and the start-up network in the Neu-Ulm/Ulm region is intended to offer founders the best possible support for their projects.
GetUp_MeetUp_StartUp! (HS Niederrhein)
Start: May 2021
The goal of GetUp_MeetUp_StartUp! is to establish a new start-up culture at the Hochschule Niederrhein. Two StartUpLabs in Mönchengladbach and Krefeld act as meeting points and create a start-up community in which interdisciplinary (start-up) teams can network.
Professional advice and support will enable all university members to try out their own ideas from teaching and research and develop them into marketable products. The StartUpLabs as a “missing link” are expected open up existing subject-specific laboratories, workshops, and research projects such as the Textile Innovatorium or the Maker Space to potential founders and complement their offerings.
By embedding (corporate) entrepreneurship in teaching and learning concepts, students will, on the one hand, be taught to regard starting a company as a career option. On the other hand, the personal development of students is promoted by teaching important future competencies such as decisiveness and personal responsibility, which are essential in a dynamically developing working environment
HIKE (HS Nordhausen)
Start: June 2020
The university incubator for entrepreneur ship (HIKE) to be established in the project has four key components:
- The establishment of an incubation programme for the targeted and structured promotion of start-ups from the kickstart programme. The aim of the programme is to develop the start-ups into a high level of maturity.
- Focusing on sustainability and the Internet of things (IoT) and thus focusing on the study and research priorities of Nordhausen University in order to provide targeted support for start-ups.
- Developing a (supra-)regional network of content partners (topics: IoT and sustainability), process partners and transfer partners (e.g. agencies, venture capital providers) to support the start-ups in the HIKE.
- Startup as a place to work together on founding ideas, to experiment with technical infrastructure and as a meeting place for students, teachers and partners interested in founding.
OGFLab (HS Offenburg)
Start: July 2021
The OGFLab is the launch pad for starting a business at Offenburg University of Applied Sciences. It is a co-working space, MakerSpace, and incubator all in one. At the OGFLab, start-up teams from all faculties at Offenburg University of Applied Sciences find a place where they can try out, network, work and surpass themselves for one semester with professional support and adequate equipment. The possibility of financial support for a project idea via KickStart funds offers an additional incentive.
OGFLab stands for Open Game & FabLab Offenburg. The focus is on game and app development (GameLab) and rapid prototyping (FabLab). However, the OGFLab is also open to teams with other topics.
With the OGFLab, Offenburg University of Applied Sciences has set up a central contact point for people interested in founding a company with a spacious workroom, modern IT equipment and professional support. The previous services of the start-up office and the EduFabLab have been integrated into the OGFLab, which means that the services can be interlinked.
Find out more: OGFLab website
StartUp!Lab@HSOS (HS Osnabrück)
Start: October 2022
The StartUpLab@HSOS is intended to sensitise and support students and employees of Lower Saxony's largest university of applied sciences, mainly through interdisciplinary cooperation in suitable premises, to work out innovations and to realise them by founding a company. The StartUpLab@HSOS offers a so-called Think! and a Make! lab with interdisciplinary sub-labs on 650 square metres at the Hafen Campus. Thus, a structured innovation and start-up process – from generating ideas and creating a business model to developing and testing the functional prototype – can be effectively accompanied by lab staff, accompanying professors and the circle of mentors as well as the Osnabrück start-up network. Specifically, students are to be motivated during their studies through inspiring teaching and project formats, extracurricular training, and various networking events. Through low-threshold accessible work, workshop and meetup spaces, mentorship as well as Kickstart and other scholarships, they can easily develop ideas parallel to their studies, research, or work.
OTH-Startup-Lab (OTH Regensburg)
Start: July 2021
The Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule (OTH) Regensburg is one of the leading UAS in Germany in the field of entrepreneurship (cf. ranking “Gründungsradar 2020”). Thanks to the BMBF funding within the framework of StartUpLab@FH, the concrete support of spin-offs from the OTH can now be supplemented by a decisive component and the general start-up culture can be further improved.
As a makerspace with workshops, co-working spaces as well as seminar and design thinking laboratories, the OTH-Startup-Lab provides a physical space for developing ideas in the early stages of projects, for trying out, experimenting, discovering, and developing. It is a space for the emergence and (haptic) development of start-up projects as well as for networking among people interested in start-ups, offering them the possibility to work on mock-ups, design studies or functional prototyping. Special opportunities arise from the potential of merging physical product ideas with digital and virtual concepts. The OTH Start-up Lab in Regensburg is not only a place for developing start-up ideas but also a centre for a lively start-up culture.
Find out more: OTH startup-center website
SPACELAB (HdM Stuttgart)
Start: July 2020
The HDM (Hochschule der Medien) Stuttgart (www.hdm-stuttgart.de) is one of the pioneers of the lean start-up approach in Germany. It is essential to validate business ideas at an early stage. A gap in HDM’s services is the lack of a space for the construction of physical prototypes, a maker space (SPACELAB). From the university’s point of view, it is important that this space facilitates low-threshold access. It should therefore be deliberately located at a central facility, the information centre. The information centre includes the library and its learning environments as well as the IT information centre. Potential founders are to be given a working environment and, where necessary, access to further-reaching technologies. This is to be managed via the SPACELAB.
Find out more:
startINN (TH Wildau)
Start: April 2020
As part of the StartUpLab @FH funding, two laboratories are planned that will complement the maker space at Wildau University of Technology with the aspects of “coworkingspace and smart working” and with a focus on artificial intelligence which is specifically important for the development of digital products and services. As part of the startINN project, a start-up ecosystem consisting of physical and virtual spaces is to be developed in combination with foundation-related knowledge transfer and interactive exchange. This project is motivated on the one hand by the positive experiences and varied usage scenarios of the university’s existing maker space and on the other hand by the untapped potential for creation due to the lack of specific laboratory and workspace infrastructure at TH Wildau, which needs to be improved.
Find out more: startINN website
SYW - StartUpYard (HS Wismar)
Start: May 2020
DWith its faculties in economics, engineering and design, the Hochschule Wismar aims to create an interdisciplinary “test island”, the StartUpYard Wismar (SYW) on the campus. The Robert Schmidt Institute (RSI), a cross-disciplinary institution for interdisciplinary competence development, manages the project together with three professors (one per faculty). The RSI’s cross-faculty idea scout takes up the new ideas at the faculties, communicates and combines them and feeds a database with the knowledge and skills of the inventors. SYW offers its service at three levels:
- General meeting place for founders and interested parties;
- Space for topic-specific workshops, discussion sessions, team-building processes;
- Concrete work on founding ideas in teams.
All is permitted that pleases: Testing is expressly desirable. With their successful participation in the KickStart@FH competition, the teams will then move to the Innovation Centre at Wismar University, where they will be supported by incubators and accelerators. After a successful founding, Wismar Technology and Start-up Centre provides infrastructure and advice to the young entrepreneurs in the first phase. StartUpYard Wismar fills the gaps in the business start-up value chain at Wismar University with its elements “test island”, “idea scout” and “KickStart@FH competition”.
Find out more: StartUpYard Wismar website
d-lab (HS Worms)
Start: May 2021
In May 2021, the Design Lab (d-lab) at Hochschule Worms was launched. For the students and staff of the three innovation-friendly departments and for the young and dynamic start-up scene on campus, a creative environment is being created for conducting creativity and idea sharpening formats. The basic layout of the Design Lab, for which a highly visible location was chosen on campus, includes a room for design and creativity as well as workshop space. Together, the Design Lab and the existing start-up office provide a holistic concept for a coherent start-up ecosystem on the campus of Hochschule Worms.
WERK:RAUM (FH Würzburg-Schweinfurt)
Start: September 2021
The aim of the WERK:RAUM StartUpLab is to promote start-up activities at the University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt (FHWS) and thus in the Main-Franconia region through an integral concept of competence-building, spatial, and organisational elements. In particular, the FHWS offers research and start-up spaces within the protected framework of the university in order to convey an innovative, economic-scientific awareness and social values. To this end, the FHWS start-up concept WERK:RAUM provides potential start-up teams with a broad spectrum of professional and interdisciplinary support as well as efficient infrastructure within an organisational framework. The WERK:RAUM as the overall concept consists of three modules: MACH:werk, TRIEB:werk and TRAG:werk. The MACH:werk module serves as a networked laboratory and meeting place. TRIEB:werk coordinates the start-up activities of the FHWS, and TRAG:werk bundles topics of start-up consulting.
Find out more: