“We are a highly innovative nation”

Ms Dannenberg, what is your assessment of Germany as a land of innovation? 
We are a highly innovative nation. We have fantastic universities and non-university research institutions. And we have loads of extremely bright people who are working on solutions to the challenges of our time or indeed of the future. We have outstanding scientists who are successful entrepreneurs at the same time. Özlem Türeci und Ugur Sahin, who developed the coronavirus vaccine with their company BioNTech, are a prime example. That said, too few people actually manage to turn their scientific insights and inventions into new companies and industries that benefit the economy. 

What is preventing them? 
It is often still incredibly difficult and time-consuming for “sciencepreneurs” at universities to pass their knowledge on to a business enterprise and capitalise on it. No small number give up in frustration after two or three years of negotiations or have to sign contracts that hamper their start-up’s development. To overcome such obstacles, we teamed up with 17 universities and research institutions to create assessment models and model contracts designed to simplify and standardise the transfer of knowledge.  

Is this partly due to the lack of mobility between science, business and politics? 
Yes, indeed. There is no obvious career path leading from science into business. Meanwhile, there are virtually no incentives for people in business to move into politics or the civil service - or vice versa. Only a handful of the members of the Bundestag are entrepreneurs or researchers.  

And SPRIND is there to provide tomorrow’s start-up founders with a platform?  
Exactly. Our main task is to turn our innovations into industries that will secure our future prosperity. Disruptive innovations differ from “normal” innovations in the sense that they are not merely improvements on something that already exists. When a disruptive innovation arrives, it makes the world a different place. If we can succeed in overcoming the “siloisation” of our systems, Germany as an economic nation will develop enormous strength. We at SPRIND act as a kind of real-world lab for this transformation.  

How much funding can SPRIND make available to support innovators? 
In 2024 the funding we provided exceeded 220 million euros. This makes us one of the biggest deep-tech funders in Europe. To date, we have reviewed 2,111 projects, provided funding for 163 of them and arranged large-scale finance for 21. This includes the 40 teams that are currently receiving funding through eight SPRIND Challenges. All teams are working on the major issues of our time. 

How do you rate the chances of success? 
We are aware that some of the projects we fund will fail. This is part and parcel of our risk-based approach. Some innovations will really take off - of that we are certain. There are firms in our project portfolio that are working on new drugs to fight cancer, Alzheimer’s and viral infections. Let’s assume that just one of the projects takes off, and let’s remember at the same time how important issues such as cancer and Alzheimer’s are - this gives you some idea of just how huge the impact of a single disruptive innovation can be.