CHALLENGES

CHALLENGE DAYS

Meeting Of The Antiviral Teams In Leipzig June 2022

» FOR TODAY I THOUGHT I WAS SUPPOSED TO SPEND THE DAY BASICALLY SITTING IN PROGRAM. AND ACTUALLY WHAT I DID WAS TALKING TO SO MANY PEOPLE, SO I KIND OF DEVIATED QUITE A BIT FROM THE ACTUAL SCHEDULE. «

In the fall of 2021, the Challenge “A QUANTUM SHIFT FOR NEW ANTIVIRAL AGENTS” of SPRIND startet. Since then, all nine Challenge teams have been working on their ideas, testing them and developing them further. In order to get away from the daily routine of the lab and to get to know the other teams, coaches, experts and, last but not least, SPRIND better, the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation organized the first Challenge Days in Leipzig on June 27 and 28, 2022.

The 60 or so guests also took the opportunity to talk to each other, share their experiences and gather a lot of new impressions and ideas in Leipzig. The participants were able to rely on first-hand input, feedback from Curevac founder INGMAR HOERR or Viratherapeutics COO LISA EGERER. In addition, they benefited from the spin-off experiences of researchers and multiple founders EICKE LATZ and THOMAS HANKE from Evotec.

»

— MARIO BRANDENBURG (PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY AT THE FEDERAL MINISTRY FOR EDUCATION AND RESEARCH) ON LEFT WITH CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD DR. E. H. PETER LEIBINGER

Female teams are still clearly underrepresented when it comes to company foundings, especially with regard to scientific spin-offs. Unfortunately, SPRIND project submissions are no exception.

In 2020, when SPRIND viewed the first submissions since being founded in October 2019, men-only teams or individual male high potentials (what we call ‘HiPos’) made up more than 98 percent—something that is hard to accept for a federal agency which makes it a mission to promote diversity, and thus equality and empowerment of women. As a result, many adjustments were made and, in particular, the public image of SPRIND was critically scrutinized. Our original public image, with the featured personalities and its initial fantastic projects, was unfortunately unavoidably entirely masculine, and our language on the website and social media was male-dominated as well. However, our goal was, and remains, to address and reach smart female innovators who we know are out there. We are not interested in quotas here. We are interested in people who want to develop the future, which is why we cannot miss out on clever, visionary ideas from half of society.

At SPRIND, we believe in diversity. Diverse teams are the catalyst for creative solution approaches and for innovations & their successful implementation. We are convinced that there are numerous talented female, agender and neutrois ‘HiPos’ with cutting-edge ideas out there.

That is why the goal is to attract potential innovators and experts of any gender or unspecified gender and to encourage them to submit their project to SPRIND. Because our credo is, “You have found the right place here if you are passionate about solving one of the major problems facing our society. We do not care about (almost) anything else.”

— RUTH BADER GINSBURG

Diversity is essential for the further development of our society and for solving the major issues of our time. We are accomplishing the ‘leap’ because we approach the issues from a very wide range of perspectives.

We see good distribution regarding the age ranges and origin countries of submitters. Unfortunately, the same cannot as yet be said about gender. Female innovators are still considerably outnumbered.

The first SPRIND projects were carried out by entirely male teams. The issues and innovators are, and were, the right ones. Obviously, to reject them would not have been an option. Accepting the lack of female submissions is not an option either, and remains one of our key goals. We managed to go from just under two percent women among the initial 200 submissions to over eight percent of the more than 1,000 submissions in 2022. While an upward trend can be seen, we are nowhere near the level we have in mind, which we need.

“If she can see it, she can be it.” This guiding principle has been successfully shaped by many initiatives, and we have taken it as a model. SPRIND therefore gives role models from the network of experts and from science, politics, economics & the SPRIND team a platform and a face. “If she can see her, she can be her.”

With Falling Walls, for example, we have started a well-attended SPRINDversity workshop for potential female founders from science & economics and have received consistently positive feedback. Successful models become approachable, and questions which many innovators are asking prior to a submission or founding can be made the subject of discussion directly and much better in a small circle. Questions are answered, worries allayed and perspectives pointed out.

DIGITAL ACTION: GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUNDING FOR THEIR SPRUNGINNOVATION

This T-shirt designed exclusively for SPRIND available in limited quantities is worn by our SPRINDfluencers posting online, tweeting on Twitter, at conferences & on the street and supports our common desire: more funding capital for women founders and more boldness from female innovators.

Many terrific and justifiably successful women are campaigning so that we hopefully will not even have to think about how to reach female innovators in the near future.

There are lots of excellent networks and initiatives promoting DIVERSITY, not only with regard to gender. The more of this we see and show in everyday life, the more women will trust in themselves to apply to SPRIND with their ideas as disruptive innovations.

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS INITIATIVE? JUST SCAN!

DR. ANNA CHRISTMANN, MEMBER OF THE GERMAN BUNDESTAG AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENT COORDINATOR OF GERMAN AEROSPACE POLICY

Supporter Of The Selfie Initiative

SUBDIVISION AT THE FEDERAL MINISTRY FOR ECONOMIC AFFAIRS AND CLIMATE ACTION

Essay

No More Innovation Theater

GUEST ARTICLE BY PROF. DR. KATHARINA HÖLZLE

HEAD OF THE INSTITUTE FOR HUMAN FACTORS AND TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF STUTTGART AND OF THE FRAUNHOFER INSTITUTE FOR INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING

Germany is still the largest national economy in Europe and an international leader with respect to investment in research and development. The manufacturing industry and technological innovations are a central foundation of the international competitiveness of Germany and an important guarantor for socioeconomic prosperity. Here, the chemical and pharmaceutical industry plays a vital role as well as the electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and automotive industry. However, a decreasing participation in macroeconomic innovative achievement by small and medium companies in particular is to be seen. Initially a result of the effects of the COVID pandemic and currently due to macroeconomic uncertainty, the planned investment for new machines and systems—as well as for all types of innovative projects—has decreased significantly. In addition, Germany’s position in terms of central key technologies has drastically declined in comparison to other countries, in particular with regard to key digital technologies like artificial intelligence, digital security technology and microelectronics. Not nearly enough is being done in Germany with respect to both research and utilization. According to Handelsblatt, Germany’s position as a start-up nation has slid from 41st to 43rd place (a five-percent drop) among the countries compared—that is, the percentage of working-age people who have founded a company within the past three and a half years. There are not many indications of innovation, and this is happening at a time when major challenges urgently need radical solutions. It is a major cause for concern.

BEFORE I SKETCH OUT POSSIBLE APPROACHES, I WOULD LIKE TO NAME FIVE DRIVERS OF THE CURRENT SITUATION:

The LOW RATE OF DIGITIZATION, caused by a highly heterogeneous digital infrastructure and generally low adoption of digital tools and services.

A NON-INCLUSIVE INNOVATION SYSTEM: Large companies and only a few regions are drivers of innovation in Germany. The percentage of women among patent applicants and in the STEM fields is very low compared to other OECD countries. Low participation in innovation and little momentum among start-ups and young companies.

AN INCREASING SHORTAGE OF SKILLED PROFESSIONALS, which has strongly accelerated in recent years. Experts currently estimate 450,000 to 600,000 unfilled positions.

A LACK OF TRANSFER FROM RESEARCH TO APPLICATIONS, founding a new venture in particular. Despite very high investment in university and public research and development, Germany’s science-based and deeptech start-up founding rate is much too low.

INCREASING FORMALIZATION AND BUREAUCRATIZATION

An ever-increasing percentage of (government) research and innovation spending is flowing into structures like management, administration and regulation, which are not directly related to innovation.

WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE?

The German pursuit of perfection and standardization was an important ingredient on the path to becoming the world champion in innovation for many years. In many fields, German companies are world champions in terms of quality—the German path to gap dimension (“Spaltmaß”) optimization, for example, is telling. These kinds of capabilities are primarily important for incremental innovation, however, in today’s world, this is not enough. Instead, we need radical innovation, and this plays by completely different rules. Radical innovation demands courage, the desire for risk, the possibility and acceptance of failure and freedom to try things out. It demands different skills, like entrepreneurial thinking and acting, collaboration and critical reflection. It is no longer enough for companies and organizations to give themselves a “coat of innovation paint” by founding an innovation lab here and an accelerator there, or making a big announcement about cooperation with a start-up or scientific organization—something we call innovation theater. In most cases these initiatives have not lived up to the hope vested in them. The main reason for this is that change and innovation were not really wanted: they are different, challenging, uncomfortable and therefore unwelcome. They mean that traditional structures, processes and ways of working have to be abolished or changed. Many people in management positions were not—and still are not—prepared to provide true freedom, take risks, eliminate existing structures and think in fundamentally new ways. This diagnosis not only applies to companies, but political, education and research organizations as well.

We must acknowledge that this innovation theater is no longer enough. We must stop deceiving ourselves that everything is going very well, that a few small changes and adjustments here and there will be enough and our past strengths will also be our future ones. Instead, we will have to say goodbye to what we have grown to love, we will have to do without, and we will have to adjust to something that has never existed before. This will not be easy, especially since we have lost our flexibility, resilience and courage and have stopped exploring new things. Our innovation muscle has become weak. We have to start building it back up again as quickly as possible. What we need now is a desire for the future, a desire for innovation and a desire for risk. Over the past few years, SPRIND has shown us how this can work. We have seen how the establishment struggled with it and how strong the tendencies to persist were (and still are). SPRIND’s path, however, shows us that it is possible to question traditional ways of thinking AND to change them. SPRIND was never innovation theater. It was real from the very start. SPRIND’s path has not been straight, and this will not change in the future. It shows us that sometimes we have to go two steps back if we want to go one forward. You have to try things out before you can say what works and what does not. Structures and institutions can change, even if at first everyone (except for one lone dissenter) says they cannot. To me, SPRIND represents a role model, provocation, and real change.

From innovation research, we know that radical innovation happens when nothing else works. Innovation boosts come in times of crisis. Is there one true path to get there? No, not at all. Regardless of the path taken, the important thing is a culture that is innovation-friendly and ready for change. This requires all stakeholders from science, business, society, and policy. If all of them are taken on board and allowed to help shape the future, I am optimistic that we, as a society as a country, will be able to jointly build on the potentials of this country, to shape the path of innovation together, to tackle the major challenges that await us with innovative approaches, and to shape a shared future worth living in.

Thanks to SPRIND, we have a role model for this.