The German Ministry of Education and Research recently launched a new initiative, FH-Impulse, to strengthen research in Universities of Applied Science. The project, funded with EUR 100 million to be spent over a time frame of eight years, is part of the already existing program “Research at Universities of Applied Science” and aims at enhancing the cooperation between small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and application-based research on a regional level. 

900 000 Germans students already study at Universities of Applied science, making up a third of higher education students in total. These universities traditionally have had a close relationship with the local and regional economy, and hence the possibility to give an important impulse in terms of innovation. 

According to Johanna Wanka, the German Minister of Education and Research, ‘Made in Germany’ is a certificate of excellence itself. The challenge and thus the target of the initiative is to be able to assure this kind of quality in the future, as well as to leverage the German economy.