University meets business; German-Polish Innovation Campus — An Innovative Pilot Project

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Almost 30 years after German-German reunification, the new federal states are still below the nationwide average of productivity, growth and innovation. With regard to these criteria, the Uckermark in 2016 was among the last three percent of 402 districts nationwide analysed by Prognos. The high-performing university locations and the targeted promotion of growth cores (RWK) are considered as a bearer of hope in the Pomerania region and in the federal state of Brandenburg. But how can both be combined to develop the innovation capacity of structurally weak areas? A key approach is the idea of transfer, which aims at closer cooperation between universities and companies. This is where the pilot project for the establishment of a German-Polish campus follows. The main focus is on the know-how transfer between the project partners and the RWK location Schwedt/O. for the founding, management and succession of companies. For this purpose, professors hold (over)planned courses not in the lecture hall, but in the companies, creating non-university learning places that provide practical insights into business processes. In close cooperation with managers and corporate mentors as role models, from companies in the Pomerania region, professional and personal ties arise, which can lead to long-term and mutually fruitful cooperation. Tandem teams of students and managers enable individual career planning and offer favourable conditions so that the students’ performance potential can develop in solving study tasks that are consistently geared to operational issues. This opens up the opportunity to promote students’ personal strengths apart from university mass operations and to tailor them to the company’s requirements. The students learn from concrete examples how to develop innovations and make them marketable under given operational conditions. At the same time, they will gain practical experience in the situational leadership of teams. In addition to the direct placement of internships, final theses and job vacancies, a special link between university and business is expressed through joint contributions and teaching concepts, which represent the basic framework of the teaching modules. In order to shape the ability to innovate as well as the internationality and export orientation of the German-Polish campus, the activities will take place with Polish partners. The initiators gained first positive experiences with the Interreg-funded cooperation project INT109 on the reciprocal transfer of German and Polish students to German and Polish companies since 2018, in which, in addition to HNEE as lead partner, Stralsund University of Applied Sciences, the University of Szczecin and the Entrepreneurs’ Association Uckermark e.V. are actively involved. The project partners have agreed to expand and continue their cross-border cooperation to further strengthen the university and business location within Pomerania. The project duration of the current cooperation project is not enough to implement and sustain future-oriented and innovative approaches in a sustainable manner. By establishing a German-Polish Innovation Campus, a qualitative development of cooperation between the partners is to be achieved. The aim of the proposed project is to establish joint actions for the networking of institutions and academia, cross-border meetings between the European Union and Poland. Students, graduates and companies of the region (SMEs) are implemented, as well as the stabilisation and consolidation of what has been achieved so far in the cooperation of the partners.

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