Start-up Ranking “A Great Success Story”

Ruhr University Bochum is delighted about the excellent result in the “Start-up Radar” of the Stifterverband für die deutsche Wissenschaft. Ruhr University Bochum has improved its ranking to sixth place, and our partners in the University Alliance Ruhr (UA Ruhr) are also very happy about their performance. With the Worldfactory Start-up Center (WSC), Ruhr University Bochum boasts a great contact point for the promotion of start-ups and transfer. Professor Günther Meschke, Chairman of the Board of the Worldfactory and Vice-Rector for Research and Transfer, discusses the factors behind its success and what other goals there are in promoting start-ups.

Professor Meschke, how do you rate the success of Ruhr University Bochum and the UA Ruhr in the latest Stifterverband ranking?
The improvement from ninth to sixth place in just three years has made me and the entire WSC team extremely happy. This excellent ranking validates the efforts we have made in recent years to develop efficient structures for the promotion of start-ups and entrepreneurship at Ruhr University Bochum and to anchor them sustainably within our university. Considering that we were ranked 34^th in 2016, the WSC has been a great success story since its foundation and a driver for the successful transfer of basic research into innovative young companies. I’m particularly pleased that our neighboring universities have likewise significantly improved their rankings and that the three UA Ruhr universities demonstrate their impressive performance in terms of start-up support in the new ranking.

In recent years, Ruhr University Bochum has put structures in place to provide optimal support for prospective start-up entrepreneurs.

What factors have contributed to the excellent results at Ruhr University Bochum and what has been undertaken in recent years to support prospective start-ups?
In recent years, Ruhr University Bochum has put structures in place to provide optimal support for prospective start-up entrepreneurs. A key success factor is the Worldfactory, which functions as a one-stop shop for start-ups, knowledge and technology transfer and patent advice. This would not have been possible without the funding as an Excellence Startup Center (ESC) from the state of NRW and the ongoing support from the NRW Ministry of Economic Affairs. In the O-Werk on Mark 51°7, the former Opel site, university members and alumni have access to the RUB Makerspace and find a contact point for transfer and start-up advice. Equally important is entrepreneurship education, which we are successively anchoring and continuously developing across our university. This enables us to promote an entrepreneurial mindset among students during their degree course.

Which goals have you set yourself for the future in terms of start-up support? Where are Ruhr University Bochum and the UA Ruhr heading?
We are pursuing three main goals: For one thing, we will consistently develop Ruhr University Bochum’s successful approach to early-stage start-up support and entrepreneurship education and strengthen it even further by expanding networks. Secondly, we are currently developing a transfer strategy that aims to raise awareness of the importance of knowledge transfer across the entire breadth of Ruhr University Bochum, including the humanities, for example. And thirdly, strengthened by the tailwind from the current ranking of the Start-up Radar, we are currently pursuing with great energy the joint application of Ruhr University Bochum jointly with its neighboring universities TU Dortmund University and the University of Duisburg-Essen as well as with the start-up initiative BRYCK, the RAG Foundation and the Initiativkreis Ruhr as a joint “BRYCK Startup Alliance” within the framework of the “Start-up Factory” flagship competition of the Federal Ministry of Economics. Our aim is to establish a leading European innovation center for the development of high-growth, science-based B2B tech start-ups in the heart of the Ruhr region with the BRYCK Startup Alliance and the bundling of forces from science, industry and business.