Ms. Guder, you have been head of UniTransfer at the University of Bremen since November 2023. How has your first year in this position been?

My team and I were able to put further measures from the University of Bremen’s Outreach Strategy into practice. The Outreach Award of the University of Bremen, which was awarded for the first time this year, is one example of our efforts and has contributed to making the university’s multifaceted outreach activities more visible. Since its foundation, the University of Bremen has been a leader in outreach-oriented initiatives and has been strongly committed to social responsibility. As a matter of course, it has been engaging in open dialogue with the community – including stakeholders from the arts and culture, education, politics, and business. The university’s new Mission Statement further underscores the key role of this topic. The current challenges society is facing also show us how important the transfer of academic knowledge and technology is, as the knowledge developed at the universities has an impact on many areas of our lives. I think it is really important to make this more visible, both inside and outside of university.

What successes can you already look back on?

The innovate! Center has been a great success. The center is going to accelerate marketing for research findings. We have launched three projects to achieve this. One of these projects is focused on accelerating the production of zinc-ion batteries, a key for supporting the growth of solar and wind energy. Another project aims to produce proteins for sustainable feed in aquaculture. They are essential in order to replace fishmeal and thus reduce overfishing. The third project is creating cutting-edge sensors to make sure hydrogen can be stored and transported safely and reliably. We prevailed over 17 competitors in the application process and will receive funding of almost 30 million euros from the Joachim Herz Foundation. This is a tremendous success, especially since we achieved this under immense time pressure. The center will be able to operate here in a very active innovation community, working closely with UniTransfer.

Together with the University of Oldenburg and seven other universities in the region, we have also initiated the development of the hoi start-up project. Our goal is to bundle start-up support in Bremen and Lower Saxony. With the Startup Factory, we assist entrepreneurs in the start-up and growth phases and accompany them throughout the entire buisness start-up process. Instead of offering individual services at different locations, we bundle everything in a regional, cross-institutional team. The Founding and Innovation Center (GIZ) of the University of Oldenburg and BRIDGE – Foundations from Bremen Universities are both part of our outreach program. Together with their partners, they have successfully prevailed in the German Exist competition. As one of 15 projects in Germany, we are now entering the concept phase. Of course, we hope that we’ll be successful in this phase as well. The partnership and close relationships that have already been established through the joint application will remain in place in any case and are already improving start-up funding in the region.

Another matter close to our hearts was and is the Outreach Award, which we awarded for the first time in 2024. The award honors projects that take academic research and translate it to the non-academic world. This year’s winner DENCAI is a software for investigating and combating dengue outbreaks. It was developed together with students. However, the other nine nominated projects also stand out as exceptional examples of successful outreach activities. We are looking forward to awarding the prize again in 2026 and hope to receive many applications from within university.

What outreach projects are planned for the future?

We will, of course, develop many things further. Outreach activities have become increasingly important at universities in recent years and are subject to many changes. A key concern is to have an impact on society. Together with my team, I want to implement this at the University of Bremen in the best possible way. For this reason, the internal strategy process with my team is extremely important to me. I am particularly looking forward to an area that we are newly developing at the moment. This summer, we will be filling a position in the area of participation and public engagement. The task of this office will be to develop formats for public participation. The lobby of Forum at Domshof is a great place for this – in the heart of Bremen, easily accessible for citizens. We are seeking to gather ideas for science, with the goal of increasing the public’s acceptance of technology and science. These can be one-time formats, but there will also be projects in which people can get involved in the long term.

We are working on many additional topics to further promote outreach activities at our university. Our Praxisbörse (a career fair) will be aimed at even more students from different disciplines and draw attention to employers that have sustainable work ethics. On a national level, we are the third-most-funded university in the area of outreach activities. Of course, we are committed to maintaining this. We are currently revising our outreach report to better communicate our third mission internally and externally. We want to give it a brand new look and make it easier to read. In addition, our Outreach Advisory Board and the outreach specialists at the individual faculties regularly provide us with good ideas about which activities we can strengthen or adopt. So we can’t complain about a lack of topics – and I am excited about what the future has in store for us.

Further information

University of Bremen’s Outreach Strategy

The Outreach Award