Experts praise scientific excellence and proximity to industry
A commission of experts from science and industry has evaluated the Innovation Alliance Baden-Württemberg (innBW) with its 12 institutes – including the DITF – on behalf of the state government. The evaluation focused on assessing the quality and success of the research and transfer work of innBW as a network and the individual member institutes. Among other things, the technology portfolio, organizational structure,
performance, financing model and orientation towards future markets were examined.
In the final report for the DITF, the experts emphasized the
outstanding scientific performance and high relevance of the DITF for the innovative strength of Baden-Württemberg's companies. The uniqueness of the DITF's ability to map the entire process chain of textile production and development was explicitly acknowledged.
The institute's strategy is excellently aligned with the needs of the industry. With its research focus, the DITF not only address traditional textile markets, but also to a large extent markets for technical textiles, in which the use of fiber-based materials can be seen as an “enabling technology”.
A particular strength of the DITF is its transfer competence and proximity to industry, which is impressively demonstrated by numerous key figures such as the number of business contracts and the number of partners in public collaborative projects: 81 percent of direct
business contracts are awarded to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), 52 percent of which come from Baden-Württemberg. In public funding programs, the majority of project participants from industry are SMEs.
In order to significantly increase the impact of research and development activities, the expert commission recommends, among other things, an increase in basic funding of around one third, similar to the
Fraunhofer model.
