The partners

Consolidated expertise

Inno­va­ti­ve com­pa­nies and inven­tors, uni­ver­si­ties and rese­arch insti­tu­ti­ons, aut­ho­ri­ties and muni­ci­pa­li­ties – they all con­tri­bu­te to Bavaria’s lea­ding role as a cent­re for sci­ence and tech­no­lo­gy in Ger­ma­ny, Euro­pe and across the world. The Bava­ri­an Rese­arch and Inno­va­ti­on Agency’s goal is to sup­port Bavaria-based sta­ke­hol­ders in sus­tai­ning and streng­t­he­ning this position.

As a cen­tral point of con­ta­ct in Bava­ria, we allo­ca­te fun­ding and advi­se espe­cial­ly SMEs and uni­ver­si­ties in their efforts to app­ly for fun­ding from the Free Sta­te of Bava­ria, the Ger­man government and the EU, while also offe­ring sup­port with issu­es sur­roun­ding the trans­fer of tech­no­lo­gy, patent pro­tec­tion, and the explo­ita­ti­on of sci­en­ti­fic fin­dings – in short: from the initi­al idea to the finis­hed product.

To do this, the part­ner orga­ni­sa­ti­ons (each with their own focus area) that make up the Bava­ri­an Rese­arch and Inno­va­ti­on Agen­cy work tog­e­ther at their offices in Nur­em­berg and Munich:

Bava­ri­an Rese­arch Alli­an­ce GmbH (Bay­FOR)

The Bava­ri­an Rese­arch Alli­an­ce GmbH (Bay­FOR) is a pri­va­te com­pa­ny to sup­port Bava­ria as a cent­re for sci­ence and inno­va­ti­on wit­hin the Euro­pean Rese­arch Area. It was set up at the end of 2006 on the initia­ti­ve of the Bava­ri­an uni­ver­si­ties and uni­ver­si­ties of app­lied sci­en­ces to streng­t­hen their net­wor­king at regio­nal, natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal level and help them pre­pa­re to meet the requi­re­ments for Euro­pean rese­arch fun­ding. To achie­ve this, Bay­FOR sup­ports and advi­ses Bava­ri­an sci­en­tists and pri­va­te sec­tor sta­ke­hol­ders in the com­pe­ti­ti­on for regio­nal, natio­nal and Euro­pean rese­arch, deve­lo­p­ment and inno­va­ti­on funding.

BayFOR’s Infor­ma­ti­on and Sup­port Cen­ter for EU-funded R&D Pro­jects con­nects Bava­ri­an sta­ke­hol­ders from sci­ence, aca­de­mia and the pri­va­te sec­tor at Euro­pean level and assists them with acqui­ring EU fun­ding. The focus is direc­ted at the Frame­work Pro­gram­me for Rese­arch and Inno­va­ti­on “Hori­zon 2020”. Sci­en­ti­fic experts pro­vi­de subject-specific infor­ma­ti­on and offer stra­te­gic advice and acti­ve sup­port for initia­ting pro­jects, set­ting up inter­na­tio­nal rese­arch con­sor­tia and sub­mit­ting pro­po­sal app­li­ca­ti­ons. Upon suc­cess­ful eva­lua­ti­on, Bay­FOR is able to pro­vi­de sup­port during grant pre­pa­ra­ti­on with the Euro­pean Com­mis­si­on and, when reques­ted, Bay­FOR pro­vi­des sup­port with pro­ject manage­ment throughout the pro­ject dura­ti­on. The key the­ma­tic are­as inclu­de envi­ron­ment, ener­gy and bio­eco­no­my, health rese­arch, bio­tech­no­lo­gy and food, infor­ma­ti­on and com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on tech­no­lo­gies, nano-sciences, new mate­ri­als and pro­duc­tion, trans­port and avia­ti­on, social sci­en­ces, eco­no­mic sci­en­ces, huma­nities, secu­ri­ty, and edu­ca­ti­on.  Fur­ther­mo­re, BayFOR’s EU Liai­son Office in Brussels repres­ents the inte­rests of Bava­ri­an uni­ver­si­ties at Euro­pean level. It incre­a­ses their visi­bi­li­ty and acts as their inter­me­di­a­ry estab­li­shing con­ta­cts with Euro­pean insti­tu­ti­ons. This con­si­der­ab­ly enhan­ces the pro­spects of Bava­ri­an app­li­cants suc­cee­ding wit­hin the Euro­pean Rese­arch Area. Ano­t­her aim is to incre­a­se the par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on of Bava­ri­an enter­pri­ses – par­ti­cu­lar­ly SMEs – in fun­ding pro­gram­mes. As a part­ner in the sup­port net­work for SMEs “Enter­pri­se Euro­pe Net­work” (EEN), Bay­FOR acts as an inter­face bet­ween aca­de­mic rese­arch and the industry.

Bay­FOR also coor­di­na­tes the joint acti­vi­ties of the Bava­ri­an Rese­arch Asso­cia­ti­ons and sup­ports their net­wor­king efforts at Euro­pean level.

Final­ly, the Sci­en­ti­fic Coor­di­na­ti­on Office Bavaria-Québec/Alberta/International wit­hin Bay­FOR pro­vi­des sup­port for bila­te­ral and mul­ti­la­te­ral rese­arch pro­jects from the­se regions.

Bayerische Forschungsstiftung

The Baye­ri­sche For­schungs­stif­tung (Bava­ri­an Rese­arch Foun­da­ti­on) was foun­ded in 1990 by the Bava­ri­an sta­te government, in order to boost Bava­ria as a site for qua­li­ty high-tech through effi­ci­ent and fle­xi­ble pro­mo­ti­on of application-based rese­arch. The Rese­arch Foun­da­ti­on con­cen­tra­tes on forward-looking pro­jects, the rea­liz­a­ti­on of which chal­len­ges sci­ence and com­mer­ce con­joint­ly while assu­ring clo­se and suc­cess­ful col­la­bo­ra­ti­on.

Two types of pro­jects are fun­ded: indi­vi­du­al ven­tures and com­bi­ned rese­arch; in addi­ti­on, scho­l­ar­s­hips are pro­vi­ded for sci­en­tist exchan­ge pro­grams. The dura­ti­on of the fun­ding is limi­ted, and the pro­jects must be joint­ly car­ri­ed out by sci­ence and indus­try. The goal is to crea­te eco­no­mic value from the rese­arch results of main focus are­as such as life sci­en­ces, infor­ma­ti­on and com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on, micro­sys­tems engi­nee­ring, mate­ri­als sci­ence, ener­gy and the envi­ron­ment, mecha­tro­nics, nano­tech­no­lo­gy, and pro­cess and pro­duc­tion engineering.

Inde­pen­dent indus­tri­al com­pa­nies, mem­bers of the pro­fes­si­ons, uni­ver­si­ties, non-university rese­arch insti­tu­tes and uni­ver­si­ties of app­lied sci­en­ces, and mem­bers and estab­lish­ments of insti­tu­tes of hig­her edu­ca­ti­on who are aut­ho­ri­sed to car­ry out rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment pro­gram­mes are enti­t­led to sub­mit app­li­ca­ti­ons. They must have a regis­tered office, plant or branch in Bava­ria. Pro­fes­sio­nal advice is given to all app­li­cants. Exter­nal experts and a sci­en­ti­fic advi­so­ry board ensu­re that the Foundation’s com­mit­tees select only the very best pro­jects.

Promoting innovation with a clear-cut profile > Welcome > Bayerische Forschungsstiftung

Bayerische Patentallianz GmbH (BayPAT)

The Baye­ri­sche Patent­al­li­anz GmbH is the link bet­ween sci­ence and busi­ness. As the cen­tral patent and mar­ke­ting agen­cy of 28 Bava­ri­an uni­ver­si­ties and uni­ver­si­ties of app­lied sci­en­ces, they eva­lua­te and mar­ket the inven­ti­ons of more than 23,000 sci­en­tists in Bava­ria. Fur­ther­mo­re, the com­pa­ny offers sup­port and con­sul­ting ser­vices to small and medi­um busi­nes­ses regar­ding pro­prie­ta­ry pro­tec­tion and mar­ke­ting of inven­ti­ons as offi­cial WIPANO part­ner for Bavaria.

Bayern Innovativ GmbH

As a company for Innovation and Knowledge transfer, Bayern Innovativ GmbH offers a comprehensive service portfolio in the field of innovation and technology promotion. The company connects, promotes and advises companies, scientific institutions and organizations of the Free State.

The innovation networks, clusters and platforms in the future fields of digitalization, energy, health, materials & production and mobility, as well as cultural and creative industries, provide a cross-industry and cross-technology innovation and transfer offering. Services from technology and innovation management, such as technology and trend scouting and digitalization, innovation and sustainability assessments provide innovation impetus, and coaching accompanies the realization. With the Bavarian joint stands (Bayerische Messegemeinschaftsstand) at leading German trade fairs and the active professional support of business delegations, Bayern Innovativ promotes the successful market launch of innovations both nationally and and internationally.

As the project management agency for Bavaria (Projektträger Bayern), Bayern Innovativ promotes new technologies and innovations on behalf of the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy, the Bavarian State Ministry for Digital Affairs and the Bavarian State Ministry of Health and Care, as well as the cultural and creative industries on behalf of the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts with a total funding volume of up to 160 million euros per year. Bayern Innovativ is one of the most established patent centers (Patentzentrum Bayern) in Europe and for 145 years has been an important consulting center for Bavarian companies on the subject of intellectual property rights and standards.

As a central point of contact with the BayFIA hotline, the Funding guide Bavaria (Förderlotsen Bayern) and Founder guide Bavaria (Gründerlotsen Bayern) and the Bavarian Expert Network (Experten Netzwerk Bayern), Bayern Innovativ mediates to the appropriate services and offers of the company and the partner organizations in the Ecosystem. As a think tank and network of networks, Bayern Innovativ connects the initiatives of Bavaria to a strong network and shapes the technology and innovation strategies of the Free State together with its partners in all future fields of the Free State actively. As a consortium leader for federal and EU projects, Bayern Innovativ, together with its partners is successfully expanding its networking, funding and consulting services for companies and stakeholders in Bavaria.