Thuringia's Minister of the Interior hands over the foundation charter of the Association for Innovation and Transfer at the TU Ilmenau

The Thuringian Minister of the Interior, Georg Maier, handed over the foundation charter of the "Association for Innovation and Transfer at the TU Ilmenau (VIT w. V.)" at the Ilmenau University of Technology yesterday (Aug. 11, 2022). The VIT w. V. sees itself as a provider of ideas and impulses for the transfer of research results of the TU Ilmenau into the economy and society. Already since 2019, the economic association finances projects between scientists of the university and industry and develops innovations of the TU Ilmenau together with external partners.

The Association for Innovation and Transfer at the TU Ilmenau brings together twelve departments of the TU Ilmenau. They cover eleven fields of competence:

• Biomedical Engineering

• Databases/Information Systems

• Electronic measurement technology and signal processing

• Manufacturing and precision metrology

• Industrial image processing

• Power Electronics

• Mechatronics

• Nanofabrication and measurement technology

• Network and IT security

• Power Distribution

• Power Systems

The departments united in the VIT w. V. are able to process orders from companies economically and commercially efficiently via the TU Ilmenau Transfer GmbH. In doing so, orders are processed according to the standards of a "properly acting businessman" and the legal form GmbH offers them a number of professional conditions for their economic work: In addition to great flexibility in the processing of orders with regard to rooms, technology and personnel, for example, creditworthiness with banks, a business liability insurance and the possibility to make non-disclosure agreements. The TU Ilmenau Transfer GmbH and thus the VIT w. V. enjoys the special status of a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) when it comes to promoting cooperation with industry.

As chairman of theAssociation for Innovation and Transfer at the TU Ilmenau, Prof. Gunther Notni, Head of the Department of Quality Assurance and Industrial Image Processing at the TU Ilmenau, accepted the foundation certificate from the hands of Minister of the Interior Georg Maier. Notni was pleased that the association enables the university to operate with the Thuringian economy: "The special thing about the economic association: It gives us the opportunity to act economically in the sense of transfer. The association, because it has SME status, can access regional networks and thus be economically active in the region."

Georg Maier, as Thuringian Minister of the Interior, has legal supervision over the economic association. When handing over the foundation charter, he expressed his conviction that the TU Ilmenau now has completely different transfer means at hand: "The TU Ilmenau is an icon for technology development. With the economic association, it now has the opportunity to transfer this technology flexibly to society."

The Thuringian Minister of the Interior was particularly interested in existing transfer projects of the TU Ilmenau in the competence field of network and IT security with secunet Security Networks AG, Germany's leading cybersecurity company. The cooperation between the TU Ilmenau's Department of Telematics/Computer Networks and secunet supports the company in its work to provide products and consulting services for resilient digital infrastructures and the greatest possible protection for data, applications and digital identities in an increasingly networked world. For example, secunet has configured the VPN in the public authority network of a large federal state so that its network connection cannot be viewed by unauthorized parties. During his visit, Georg Maier was given a demonstration of the technology in a laboratory at Ilmenau Technical University.

The joint projects are financed by public funding - handled by the TU Ilmenau - or by research contracts financed directly by secunet - handled by the TU Ilmenau Transfer GmbH. Prof. Günter Schäfer, head of the Telematics/Computer Networks department, is convinced by this two-track form of project handling: "We are thus able to respond ideally to the specific legal and commercial conditions of a project in each case."

Photo for free publication in connection with the content of this press release (© TU Ilmenau/Marco Frezzella):

The chairman of the Association for Innovation and Transfer at TU Ilmenau, Prof. Gunther Notni, accepts the founding certificate from the hands of Thuringia's Minister of the Interior, Georg Maier