The Research Manufactory

“Innovation = Invention + Market Penetration” is the working formula of the Berlin Institute for Innovation (BIFI). Founded in 2010 in Brain City Berlin, the interdisciplinary team primarily supports start-up companies in developing innovative products and bringing them to market. BIFI takes a scientifically sound approach to examining the experiences of future users – and relies primarily on psychology. The team also strategically brings together the perspectives of science and business, as founder Anke Skopec explains. 

A frequently cited example of successful knowledge transfer in Germany is the development of the mRNA vaccine Comirnaty (BNT162b2) by BioNTech. The two immunologists Uğur Şahin and his partner Özlem Türeci founded the Mainz-based biotechnology company in 2008 with the prize money they won as part of a competition organised by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)’s “Biotechnology Start-up Initiative” (GO-Bio). The program promotes innovative projects in the field of life sciences in order to put them into practice – such as the Berlin-Buch-based start-up specialising in T-cell therapies Captain T Cell. GO Bio is entirely in line with the “Future Research and Innovation Strategy” adopted by the Federal Government in 2023. Their objective: to bring more groundbreaking innovations to the fore. Germany is losing more and more ground worldwide in terms of innovation. According to the Innovation Indicator 2024 (German only), compiled by the Federation of German Industries (BDI), Roland Berger, Fraunhofer ISI and the Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), the Federal Republic has now slipped to 12th place out of 35 economies analysed. This puts it just ahead of Great Britain, but far behind the top-placed Switzerland, Singapore and Denmark. Although Germany continues to perform very well in research and development, it is lagging behind in the implementation of knowledge in the economy.

Individually designed experience scenarios

Dr. Anke Skopec, Managing Director and Head of Research at the Berlin Institute for Innovation (BIFI), says that one of the main reasons why many science-driven innovations fail to reach the market is that the parameters of the environment are often not correctly determined in advance. “Every product, every company and every strategy is different. Relying solely on existing approaches and data is therefore not enough.” This is where BIFI comes in. Founded in 2010 by business scientist and psychologist Skopec together with four colleagues, the company has now grown to a ten-strong interdisciplinary team of researchers. BIFI specialises in helping start-ups and SMEs to bring their innovation ideas to market successfully. In contrast to classic market research, the team does not rely solely on numbers and statistics, but primarily on psychology.

“We have been researching under which circumstances innovations can be used for 15 years,” says Anke Skopec. “To understand better what offers people real added value and represents progress, we use psychology to create new application worlds and realities, for example by means of videos. We have also used hypnosis.” BIFI sees itself as a midwife in this process: “We do not create innovations, but rather help to bring them to market successfully” explains Skopec. “Psychology is necessary to explain and predict human behaviour validly in the individual world of experience of a new product.” The equation that guides the team in this process is: “Innovation = Invention + Market Penetration.” Market penetration in this context means “that the invention actually becomes established in the real world and significantly changes the status quo socially.” One example of such an experience world scenario is the “Feedback Factory”, a test department store for start-up products that BIFI opened in 2018 to enable young companies to enter the retail sector more quickly and easily. The team helped the Berlin start-up DearEmployee to develop a specific matching mechanism for its app. Companies can use the platform to measure the mental stress of the employees in the workplace and define customised health solutions. 

Market research with sensitivity

“We have many clients who want to develop a business model as university spin-offs,” says Anke Skopec. “As a first step, we therefore try to understand where the client’s problem really lies, where the strategic challenge lies. This is often a little hidden. Based on this, we recommend a methodology and develop a concept. In the implementation, we use statistics as well as qualitative mapping and then tailor each study individually. We are a research manufactory, so to speak.”

An important part of the work of this manufactory and at the same time one of the central challenges for the team: bringing science and business together in the projects. A task that requires sensitivity: “To exaggerate a little: Science often lacks a connection to economic application, while business lacks a psychological or scientific-technical understanding of its products. Both lack external validation of their ideas. We bring these perspectives together and integrate them into our research approach.” Anke Skopec interprets this as a kind of translation aid, as many of her clients are very tech-orientated. “They often do not even focus on addressing end customers. Often we just need to work together to change the communicative focus a little bit in order to make the product future-proof. According to Skopec’s experience, a strong scientific orientation makes a product strong on the one hand, but can also be a weak point.

Fear of contact between research and industry can also block innovation. A well-known example from tech history is the development and marketing of the MP3 file format. It was invented in the early 1990s at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits in Erlangen – based on the doctoral thesis of student Karlheinz Brandenburg. However, it was not Fraunhofer that later celebrated its great market success, but Apple – with the launch of the first iPod in 2001.    

The Berlin Institute for Innovation can build bridges in such cases. “We live the scientific opportunity internally, but our work mentality is similar to that of a start-up,” says Anke Skopec. “We try to be fast, flexible and agile, but not lose depth. Someone said recently: You always think everything through so deeply. I think that has a big impact on us. That we think in an economically focused way and yet approach everything very scientifically. ”There are good reasons why BIFI is still located in the Brain City: In addition to a lively, committed start-up scene and the wide range of funding opportunities for researching and developing innovative products, Anke Skopec particularly appreciates the high potential for ideas in her native city: “Berlin is home to the world – getting to know new perspectives and gaining a new view of things is almost unavoidable here.”

Story: Ernestine von der Osten-Sacken

• bifi-institute.com
• berlin-innovation.de (German only)