Innovation and Cooperation

The department Innovation and Cooperation (IKO) particularly supports small and medium-sized enterprises in their innovation processes. In order to be able to withstand the pressure of international competition, companies are forced to efficiently develop and manufacture products that are of high value, qualitatively and functionally, in increasingly shorter innovation cycles. This is frequently only possible through networking and cooperating with other companies or establishments of higher education.                                 

Network activity, cooperation and innovation projects which lead to innovative products, techniques and services are the subject of the Zentrale Innovationsprogramm Mittelstand (ZIM) /central innovation programme for SMEs/ of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi), in which the sector IKO operates in the programme branches ZIM-NEMO (network module) and ZIM-SOLO (individual project funding). Innovation and Cooperation – it’s all in the name. The range of programmes offered by the sector is rounded off by consultations on a company-to-company basis on the efficiency of materials, which are also funded by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. To this end, the Deutsche Materialeffizienzagentur demea (German Agency for Material Efficiency) was set up in the sector IKO.

As the programmes of the BMWi are non-technology and non-branch specific, the sector IKO covers a wide array of technical topics.

Thematic priorities:

• Production technologies
• Electronics, measurement engineering, sensor technology
• I&C technologies
• Materials technologies
• Automotive and traffic technologies
• Energy technologies
• Optical technologies
• Process engineering
• Chemistry

Branch of Industry priorities:

• Mechanical engineering
• Manufacture of DP equipment, electronic and optical products
• Information technology and associated services
• Manufacture of metal products
• Manufacture of electrical equipment
• Vehicle construction
• Rubber and plastic goods

Project Examples