• © Maschinenraum

    22.02.2023

    HTW Berlin cooperates with Maschinenraum

The University of Applied Sciences wants to tap additional transfer potential by means of cooperation with the nationwide network of SMEs. The aim is to make it easier for students to enter the business world. Maschinenraum is located in the Brain City Berlin. 

Knowledge and technology transfer is a topic with high social, economic and also political relevance worldwide. In Brain City Berlin, the exchange between research and business has a particularly high priority. This is mainly due to the high density of universities, colleges and research institutions and the city’s dynamic start-up scene. In many innovative projects, researchers work together with companies on solutions to current challenges such as climate change, health or sustainability. The most recent example is the cooperation between the Berlin University of Applied Sciences (HTW Berlin) and Maschinenraum. Located in a former shoe factory in Prenzlauer Berg, as an independent network and innovation space, the platform now unites more than 60 family and medium-sized companies, as well as university partners and other innovators. Würth Elektronik is just as much a part of this as Fiege Logistik, Sennheiser, STIHL or the Melitta Group. The objective of the merger, which developed out of a corporate process of the Vissmann Group, is to drive forward the digital and sustainable transformation of SMEs.

The focus of the cooperation between Maschinenraum and HTW Berlin is primarily the exchange between theory and entrepreneurial practice. Many HTW research projects are geared specifically to the innovation needs of individual companies and sectors or to the development potential of the capital region. This applies above all to the fields of competence “Industry and the working world of the future”, “Digital economy” and “Renewable energies – energy efficiency”. However, it is also about showing and paving the way for students and alumni of the university to pursue careers in SMEs. “We educate the young professionals of tomorrow and address the relevant challenges of our time in our research”, says Prof. Dr. Stefanie Molthagen-Schnöring, Brain City Ambassador and Vice president for research and transfer at HTW Berlin.

The central approach of the Maschinenraum network is that all members share knowledge and experience, but also resources, methods and infrastructures with one another and therefore learn from one another. “We need these valuable connections between family entrepreneurs, SMEs and students, between teaching, research and practice,” explains Tobias Rappers, Managing director of Maschinenraum. The private business university ESMT Berlin and the EBS University for Economics and Law (EBS) are other scientific cooperation partners of the Maschinenraum network from the university sector. (vdo)

 

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