The main advisory centre of the university’s Transfer and Entrepreneurship Office has been relocated to “Hoher Weg” in early 2025. The building previously was home to MLU’s Centre for Engineering Science. Now, effective solutions for the future are again being crafted here. The Transfer and Entrepreneurship Office is part of the Department for Research, Transfer and External Funding Services. Here, students, researchers and alumni interested in starting a business can receive tailored support throughout the entire innovation process: from the initial idea to conceptual planning and concrete implementation. This includes workshops on innovation methods, the development of impact cases, the creation of business models, and advice on intellectual property rights. The team also provides support in acquiring funding and scholarships as well as finding suitable cooperation partners. A team of five people is now responsible for raising awareness and advising on start-up support and entrepreneurship education. Funding of nearly 800.000 euros is being provided by the “European Social Fund Plus” and MLU is also strengthening its support in terms of personnel. 

With a range of experience in business, science and innovation management, the team creates opportunities for those seeking to develop their ideas and make an economic and social impact. “The university’s start-up support focuses on encouragement, crossdisciplinary collaboration and networking. Research, innovation and entrepreneurship are understood to be connected paths of development,” explains Dr Susanne Hübner, head of the Transfer and Entrepreneurship Office. 

These paths often begin during studying and teaching. There are new approaches here as well. In 2025, the university created a position for entrepreneurship education, which provides a point of contact to international students interested in starting their own businesses. The focus is on encouraging students across faculties to think and act in an entrepreneurial way early on and to help them access innovation-oriented education and experience. In this way, the university helps to put knowledge into practice while, at the same time, creating an environment in which creativity, responsibility and future orientation are a matter of course. 

Research teams are also encouraged to think about entrepreneurship and engage in dialogue with the region of Saxony-Anhalt early on. The transfer incubator at the “Just Transition Center” (JTC), one of MLU’s major structural change projects, allows an interdisciplinary transfer team to support its researchers in developing impact cases and establishing transfer connections in southern Saxony-Anhalt. 

An incubator for “Robotics and Assistance Technologies for Nursing and Healthcare” will be set up as part of another structural change project: “Innovation Region for Digital Transformation of Nursing and Healthcare” (TPG). Together with the Transfer and Entrepreneurship Office, it will provide infrastructure and personnel for the further development of technical innovations for the future of healthcare. This project is also receiving just under 800.000 euros in funding from the EU programme “European Regional Development Fund” (ERDF) and is anchored at the “TPG Maker Lab” and the “Scidea Lab” on the Weinberg Campus, very close to University Medicine Halle. 

Existing companies in the region also benefit from the work of the Transfer and Entrepreneurship Office: cooperation between science and industry is actively promoted to strengthen application-oriented research and to enable innovation partnerships. This creates new access to expertise, technologies and scientific excellence. 

The vision for the future is ambitious: “The university has tremendous potential in shaping social change in southern Saxony-Anhalt. It is already a place where innovation happens naturally, where research can prosper and where founders have the freedom to develop their ideas. The Transfer and Entrepreneurship Office shapes and moderates this space – openly, courageously,” says Hübner.