In this episode, we’ll hear from Anna Figoluschka, Founder Advisor, and Teresa Kollakowski, technology transfer officer at Profund Innovation at the Freie Universität Berlin. Learn what the transfer offices at the university can do for you as a researcher and find out about the benefits of having a chat with the transfer office team even if you don’t already have a clear idea of how to bring your research to the market. We also talk about how fields like social science and humanities can benefit from transfer support at the university. Listen or read the transcript below!

Highlights

„I guess, everyone who is in science or who’s doing his or her PhD right now, at least I imagine, is in science because he or she wants to have an impact. They want to invent something or find out some new things and make the world a better place. I know that’s quite often used phrase. But yeah, if you want to have an impact, society and the market need to know about your results. They have to get out of the drawer next to your desk and come to the public. And so, we will support you with that either in the way of bringing you together with companies or to support you to found your own company.“

from our interview with Profund Innovation

Audio

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Links

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transcript

I’m so excited to be here today with you guys. I’m going to just ask you to briefly introduce yourselves and tell me a little bit about who you are and why you’re here with us. I’ll start with you.

Teresa: Hello, I’m Teresa Kolakowski, working as technology transfer officer at Freie Universität Berlin at Profund Innovation. I support industry-university collaborations and help researchers to get in contact with enterprises.

Anna: Hello. I’m Anna Figulushka. I’m Founder Advisor at Profund Innovation, Freie Universität Berlin. I’m there for any student or alumni or PhD candidates who would like to find out if they want to found a startup. They can come up to me and I will try to find a funding program or will try to give them advice on a business model.

That sounds very exciting. I want to just start off with this question: What is Profund and what is transfer? What do you do?

Anna: I can start with the Profund Innovation institution. We are there for the transfer of research ideas into society and economy. And to find interesting and good ideas in the university and outside of the university that may be the right ideas to found a company with. So we support any researcher who comes up to us and finds a connection to our own university, to see whether they can found a startup. We are a team of almost eight people that work in different areas of that topic, either innovation management or transfer management or startup support. We have a huge, nice building in Dahlem, close to the Freie Universität, which has 25 offices for startups and labs where researchers can still try to find the right formula for their idea and where we give them support of different kinds: their workshops or coaching or an office space to work together with their team. That’s what we do.

If you guys could maybe just tell me really briefly: What is transfer?

Teresa: So I would say in general transfer means we have knowledge and technology transfer in the meaning of bringing your research results into society and/or the market. That you don’t just stay in your scientific community, scientific bubble, but that you make your knowledge accessible for other persons, for the public, for people like you and me.
That you can do either in the way of working together with other stakeholders or in the way of founding your own company.

I would love to kind of ask you guys how you got into this and I want to start with you, Teresa. How did you get into the topic of working on transfer and why is this an important topic for you?

Teresa: Thanks for that question. Well, in my master’s degree I studied science and technology studies at Humboldt University, which was about scientific results and what we are doing with them. How to generate them and what does science do for society. After that it was quite clear for me to work at a university, at a place where scientific knowledge is produced, where I can work with scientists, researchers.
So I started working as Grant Advisor at Freie Universität four years ago. There I was responsible for the Department of Veterinary Medicine and the Department of Biology, Pharmacy, and Chemistry, and supported the researchers to apply for funding at the DFG Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft or the BMBF Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung for a European grant. All the stuff you can imagine that researchers have to deal with every day. I really liked that job, but I always asked myself what’s happening after that. So you have this three years project and what’s coming next. What do you do with the results? How to get it into society, into the market.
And then I saw this open position at Profund Innovation and thought: Okay, that’s my chance to change the position and support researchers not only with the grants and the basic research, but to also help them to bring their ideas, their results into the society market and do something with it, to have a use case, have an application. Do not just publish it in journals, but bring a product into the market or in the health sector, to do something good for society and heal infections or anything.

Thanks. It’s very important because in our podcast series we’ve talked to a lot of people about the challenges of the academic job market. I really like to bring this idea that there are many ways to have a career even if you go into research. And I think this is a really interesting option for researchers who are thinking about what do I do after my PhD or after my doctorate. So I’d love to hear from you, Anna, as well. What got you into this topic? What made you want to work on this with students at the university?

Anna: Well, I didn’t study at Freie Universität Berlin, but I studied communication design. And I guess that is something that made me, or influenced me in that way that I always thought I want to work on something new or find something new. That’s what designers do. They find and they organize ideas. Sowhat I did afterwards were many steps. I worked at a pharmaceutical company. I worked for an IT service company and I founded three companies as well. The last one was an app and that’s almost six years ago. Since four years I’m at Profund Innovation and I’m supporting startups. Mainly startups coming from Freie Universität. Well, ideas that evolved from research at Freie Universität, but also any others can draw a connection. That is why I’m here and I’m really happy, that it’s such a creative work. Because on the way the idea may change and I’m always happy when it comes to a complete new perspective and to find a niche in the market.

So when we think about transfer in general and this idea of starting a startup, what do you think you would say if there was a researcher, an early career researcher, who says: I see no connection between what I’m doing right now. I’m in a lab. How do I not have any cool ideas. So how is this relevant for me? What would you tell them to help them to understand to come to you guys, or maybe even that it’s worth having a conversation about transfer?

Teresa: Actually, it’s always good having a conversation because we have innovation scouts in our team. They help you to identify the innovation potential and use cases or applications that you might not have in mind because you’re thinking only of your lab or the researchers in your field. Our innovation managers will be happy to invite you for a coffee here, have a conversation, ask you if have you ever imagined that someone from another field could be interested in your results, because maybe it helps them to improve their ideas. And then, yes, sometimes you get new inputs. For instance, we had one researcher from the department of earth science working with dust in the atmosphere. And she always thought: Well, I’m doing basic research and there isn’t any application for that. But with the help of our innovation manager, we identified photovoltaic is quite interesting because the technique doesn’t work if dust is on the PVC. So that’s a use case she never thought of before. And now we think of working together with a company or bringing up a project together.

That’s a fantastic example. I would love to hear if there are any other examples that you guys can think of where people came to you and maybe really had a hard time imagining this connection between startups or developing a cool idea outside of research. And they were able to come out with maybe not even a startup idea, but just a new idea, a benefit to them talking to you guys.

Anna: Yes, I can think of another idea. There was one PhD candidate. She was at the Department of Linguistics at Freie Universität, at the Department of Romanian Philology. She was working on parts of words and found out that the pronunciation in Vietnamese is so very difficult, so different to other languages and it’s so difficult for Vietnamese to learn German. And she developed a way how to teach Vietnamese people to learn German. And then she met her later co-founder. He was a data scientist and he said, „Oh, it’s possible to train an AI on how to learn German and make Vietnamese people learn German quicker.“ And so they worked together and now found a company called Silbi. And they’re training their AI model successfully and now found investors to invest in the company. That’s another example. And, of course, we know many more because there are coming a lot of ideas into our office.

Very cool. Say, I am really new to this idea about coming up with an idea, and I’m not really sure, about how this might work. What process would I go through if I come to you? What might that look like to develop an idea into something long term?

Anna: As Teresa already mentioned, first it is maybe a coffee with the innovation managers on like: Hey, I’m working on a project at the lab or wherever in the university. Then the innovation manager would say: Hey, I’ve got a connection to an existing company, or why don’t you work in the area of renewable energies, for instance? And then, someone would come to me and we could already work on a business case, on a business model. We normally use the business model canvas, which is a training or model to easily evaluate whether your idea does fit into a market. You will find out whether there’s a target group. You will find out what stakeholders are there, which interest groups, and who would pay for the product in the end. What else needs to be done? Does it need development? Maybe a data scientist works on the development of the product or does it need a lab, or is it hardware which you need to be connected to any company in our network? We provide you with all kinds of contacts. We kind of give you homework and meet up again and again until we think: Alright, now it’s a good point to find the matching funding program. And there are quite a few different ones. There are different ones for the transfer part than for the startup part. For instance, for startup ideas there’s the Berlin Startup Stipendium. It’s a program that is for early-stage ideas. When you’ve already found: Yes, there’s the market for my idea. And you know already: Okay, I need to work on a prototype to test it in the market., then the Berlin Startup Stipendium is a really good thing. You get a grant, a stipend for up to four team members for half a year or even for 12 months. That’s around 2,300 euros. You get workshops and a lot of support from us and you get connected to our big ecosystem, which I haven’t mentioned yet. We call it Science and Startup. It’s the ecosystem of all three Berlin universities in cooperation with Charité. And we at Freie Universität Berlin have the healthcare and prevention startups in our cluster. There are two other clusters, which are technologies and materials. That’s of course connected to Technical University. And sustainability and society is connected to Humboldt University. And in cooperation with Charité we do the healthcare part. And then there’s another funding program. It’s called EXIST. There is the EXIST Founders Business Grant, which is a stipend for 12 months, which supports teams for up to three team members with a stipend of up to 3,000 euros for PhDs and material money of 30,000 euros and coaching money of 5,000 euros. And during the projects the teams are always in our house and our startup Villa and/or in other houses of other university and incubators, depending on where they apply. They have an office in the house and get access to all kinds of lab spaces and conference rooms. They get connected with mentors, coaches, and experts.

So it sounds like a lot of possibilities for people who are thinking about this. Do I need business knowledge? Like, do I have to be someone who really feels like an entrepreneur or is it possible to do this if I feel like that I’m not really sure how businessy I am. Or maybe I have one foot still in research and I’m kind of thinking about it.

Anna: Well, I’ve met quite a few researchers who started a business without having done business before. So it’s good if you are driven. I mean, if you’ve got the energy to do it. Because doing or starting a startup is kind of starting anew, like new studies at university. It’s like a whole new thing. And you need to have some energy, but best case is that you wear all hats: You’re the idea giver and you’re the business guy and you know marketing and sales. But that’s not very often the case. More often it is that you find other team members who are experienced in business or sales or marketing and we help find additional team members. It’s possible to post a job offer at the university or at our network and it’s mostly possible to find a person that fits into the team.

It sounds like you really don’t have to be the business person if you want to try this out. And it sounds like you’d be able to test it out a little bit, get to know you guys and you don’t have to decide right away that you want to do a whole startup. So I have a second question. And that would be. Imagine that I get involved and I start developing an idea. Maybe I go all the way through this startup founding or come up with this business idea, but it’s not successful. What benefit do I have as a researcher for trying this out? And maybe I tried out during my PhD or during my early postdoc phase. What is the benefit of it? If I don’t succeed, what do I get out of that?

Anna: Well, in my opinion, it is really like another education that you went through. And like you’ve had an upgrade on your education. That’s an experience that you will always need because you’ve been able to build up a network that you will probably keep for a long time and you will always be able to get back to people you met during starting up a business. And of course, if it didn’t work, maybe you will try again. Because that’s what a lot of people do. They fail once and try it again and do it better the next time. So that is, I think, what you get out of it.

Teresa: I wanted to add, that if you’re more into the transfer perspective from industry-university collaboration then founding your own startup, I guess that it’s quite similar. You get a new network because you will work with the company, you get to know people there, get new insights, also see what kind of jobs are available. Like who’s working in this company? Could I imagine myself working there? So having first contact with them. We also support you going to fairs and present your idea. For instance, we are having your prototype at this fair and then you could also meet new interesting people. Or you go to any network events we organize. For instance, we have Industry on Campus with a focus on green chemistry, where students and researchers from Berlin or any other place are able to meet startups, companies that engage in green chemistry. Just talk to them, get new ideas, new input, and learn something.

Excellent. So it sounds like there’s a possibility not just to start a company, but also to sort of talk to companies that exist to find out a little bit about how I can bring my idea into existing structures? Did I understand that correctly?

Teresa: Exactly. So there are funding programs supporting the cooperation between small and medium enterprises in Germany with universities or research institutions in general. And we’re happy to support those projects. Also, if you don’t know any company working in your field, you can tell us your idea and then we are happy to have a look if we know anyone who’s working in this field. We bring you together, have a meeting and maybe a project arises and then we apply for this funding.

Excellent. So maybe that’s also another option for listeners who are kind of interested in this startup idea, but they’re not really sure if they see themselves starting a whole company. Where they can find out a little bit more about what’s going on in the industry. If they’re not so sure how that might work, or maybe they want to bring an idea.
So you guys also do a couple of other things. You have a lot of services that you already mentioned. Is there anything else that you haven’t talked about that you think that I should know about, if I were doing a PhD at the Freie Universität and I was thinking about transfer in general?

Teresa: We also organize a lot of competitions. For instance, the Research to Market Challenge, where you can submit a short concept note presenting your idea and then, if you are selected, you will get through some workshops, get this knowledge Anna mentioned before, some canvas business model or a pitch training and you will have the chance to develop your idea further with the help of trainers and the help of our grant advisors. Or another competition is Forum Junge Spitzenforschung, which will open a new call this autumn and the topic will be sensors and data generated by them. There you could also hand in your recent research and hope to get funding and workshops with the trainers.

It sounds like there are a lot of opportunities, but it also sounds like something where you could get really important skills, even if you don’t kind of go in this direction, even if you stay in academia. Because pitching your project and being able to get people excited about it, is something that you need to know across the board. So that sounds very cool. So what is the benefit of working with you guys versus just doing this by myself?

Anna: We’ve been in this area since 2006. Profund Innovation and the call to do transfer at university exists since 2006. So there is some experience . And we do see a lot of projects and ideas. So I think we are really a good address to go to as well as the other transfer and startup teams at other universities. So you should really just write us or call us and talk to us if you plan on developing your idea further, or if you just want to find out if this idea is eligible for any funding program. And I wanted to add a service that we offer, or at least a colleague of ours offers. Whenever researchers start, he or she should come up to us, or to our colleague. She does IP management and patent management. So if there’s any issue about where you could find out whether your idea is able to file a patent for or if you want to find out how to protect your IP, you should definitely go to our colleague Dr. Christine Reuter.

Could you tell us a little bit about this IP process and patent process? Like what is important and what are some of the concerns that researchers have when they’re thinking about this process, what might be some of the questions?

Teresa: The biggest concern is „I will lose time“, because a patent isn’t published in a journal, as PhD students or researchers are used to, but there is a different process. So most of the people say, „No, I want to publish it because I want to submit my PhD soon. I want to have the certificate.“, and there we would recommend before publishing, to come to our colleague, Christine to talk to her about your research results. And also the patent process can be quite fast. So after you have talked to her and both of you decided you have a good result, you have something that is worth to go for a patent, then you can submit together with the other persons who were involved in the process of getting this research results, an invention disclosure. After that, Christine and her team will do some research like: Are there other patents in this field? If so, what content do they have? Is your content new enough or different enough to be a new patent? Is there an inventive step in your research results? She always says, research results can be patented if the guy in the lab next door would have never expected this result. If you go to him or her, tell him or her your ideas and he’s like, „Oh, wow. That’s totally new. I would have thought if I put A and B together, it’s C and now you say it’s D. So amazing.“ That’s worth going for a patent. So you submit this invention disclosure to Christine and her team. And after that, they do some research, have talks with our lawyer, the patent lawyer. And after that we will confirm or not confirm to take it. And after that it’s published, I think, 12 months later. But having in mind that also reviews at journals take quite a while. At least in life science I know stories where a paper took two years to be published. So compared to that it’s quite fast. Not slower than a paper, let’s say it this way. And for your track record, a patent counts as a publication. So that’s sometimes important as well.

So if I publish something as a patent, one benefit of doing the patent is that I have a publication basically. What is the other benefit of getting a patent? Like, why do I want one? Why is it important?

Teresa: For most funding agencies, the probability of funding is higher if you have a patent. At least for the funding programs we support at Profund Innovation, which deal with transferring knowledge into industry. There it’s a plus point if you can show I have a patent on that.

I would love to hear from you guys if there are any examples you can share with us. We love all examples, but I would love to hear if there are examples that have a connection to the social sciences, to the humanities, because I think that’s a little bit harder sometimes for people to imagine, you know, how do I fit in here? I think it’s a little easier for life sciences. And I know you guys are specializing in the life science and the health, as you mentioned. But if you have any, and when you’ve heard about it, I would just think it’d be really interesting for our listeners to hear about.

Anna: Yes, we all love to see more ideas evolving from the social sciences. And we are waiting for it patiently, but there are examples at least. Quite a few that are from the Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences at Freie Universität. One, for example, is an app called Aumio, which is the meditation app for kids with ADHD. The founder studied psychology at Freie Universität Berlin and he was an ADHD patient himself when he was a child. And his parents were like: Oh yeah, we don’t make a big topic out of it. Just wait and see until it gets better and so on. But one day he discovered that meditation helped him a lot. So when studying psychology, he did his master thesis about that topic and did quite a few surveys and started to study on that and found out it really, really helps. So, he built up the startup idea and found team members in the business area and design. And designed this beautiful app with meditation, adventurous trips for kids. And came up with funding and made it to the health insurance company. All the big ones from Germany. That’s a well going startup right now. And there’s another idea that evolved also from the psychology department, which is an awesome app for chemotherapy. Normally, when they receive chemotherapy, they have kind of a chain of little beads and they can say: Okay,now I’ve gained another bead and I have chemotherapy one, then there’s the other therapy and I get another bead and so on. They developed an app for that because, of course, kids today find it way cooler to have a digital tool to see their progress. Developing that app, the idea giver did not only study psychology at Freie Universität but she was a nurse before. A children’s nurse at Charité. And she could also find out that of course parents were really kind of feeling helpless, supporting their kids. And then she also developed an app for parents and caregivers. So she made up a lot of content to help caregivers deal with this situation.

That’s a great example of a connection to the social sciences, because I can think of a lot of ideas where people are talking about research, where they’re dealing with, you know, what do people, how do people behave, or what do they do, or what do they need? And I also really like that idea of connecting to a prior career path, because I think it’s easy for a lot of people to think: I’ve done all these different things. How do I put those two things together?

Teresa: Maybe I can add something to that question because it’s not only us hoping for new projects or more projects in the field of social science and humanities, but also the politics are going that way. The Federal Ministry for Research and Education will publish a call for social innovations in October, November. And we will be happy to have some info sessions on that as soon as it is published. I hope to have a lot of applications from Freie Universität.

I have one more question for you, and that is: What have I not asked you that you think that I should ask you? And maybe there’s some questions that people come to you guys with and you really feel like that’s a question that you would love for everyone to have the answer to, because it gets asked so often. Or maybe there’s a question or information that you would love to share. And I’ll ask both of you.

Anna: Yeah, maybe people come up and wonder when is the best time to approach us. It’s always a question. I think we all would say: Whenever you feel like it. Whenever you think you’ve found something that is possibly a good startup idea or that could be interesting for industry partners, just give us a call.

Teresa: And maybe it’s not only the question, „When should I come to you?“, but also, „Why should I come to you?“ And there, I guess, everyone who is in science or who’s doing his or her PhD right now, is in science because he or she wants to have an impact. They want to invent something or find out some new things and make the world a better place. I know that’s a quite often used phrase. But if you want to have an impact, society and the market need to know about your results. They have to get out of the drawer next to your desk and come to the public. And so we will support you with that. Either in the way of bringing you together with companies or to support you to found your own company.

So I just want to thank you guys so much for talking to us today. We’re recording this interview in the fall, but it’s possible that it might not be published for a little while. So for our listeners, you will be able to find information about what is coming up by visiting the links, which we’ll also provide, to the Profund Innovation website. Or by getting in touch with the team at Profund Innovation. Thank you so much.

This interview was conducted by the co-host of our podcast Amanda Wichert