Short description
In the course of the BMBF's Future Cluster Initiative, the project M Cube - Munich Cluster for the Future of Mobility in Metropolitan Regions was selected as a finalist in the first funding round and thus for funding of a 6-month concept phase. For the concept phase from May to November 2020, a 6-member team of the TU Munich, consisting of employees of the chairs of Prof. Lienkamp, Prof. Pfotenhauer and Prof. Wulfhorst, was funded.
UPDATE: M Cube is one of seven winners for the BMBF clusters4future initiative! The first implementation phase begins in November 2021 and goes for 3 years.
BMBF's Future Cluster Initiative (Clusters4Future)
The Vision
As the new flagship of the German government's High-Tech Strategy 2025, the future clusters make a special contribution to knowledge and technology transfer. With the regional approach of cluster funding, they tie in directly with cutting-edge research and thus ensure that technological as well as social innovations reach people's everyday lives more quickly. At the same time, they help Germany maintain its strong position among the world's innovation leaders and master the challenges in important future fields - whether new mobility and communication solutions, the design of Economy and Work 4.0, personalized approaches in medicine or innovative contributions to a resource-efficient circular economy. The Future Cluster Initiative launches the competition for the best ideas for new value creation in Germany.
From excellent research to excellent innovations
Germany's universities and research institutions are excellently positioned in the field of basic research. With the Excellence Strategy and the science pacts, we are giving cutting-edge research a lasting perspective. However, it is also crucial that the transfer of promising research results to industry and society is successful. We can still improve here. With our future clusters, we are linking Germany's top research to questions of applicability at an earlier stage and setting innovation processes in motion more quickly. In this way, the best ideas quickly become new products, processes and services.
Top regional locations as powerful innovation networks
We promote top locations throughout Germany and ensure that scientific hotspots become powerful regional innovation networks. Transfer from research to application is particularly successful where geographically concentrated partnership structures with a long-term perspective develop. Wherever ideas germinate, reliable partners are needed to implement them. Regional innovation networks stand for a trust-based cooperation of all relevant actors in a region along a common strategy for a common topic or technology field. With the future clusters, we want to bundle different perspectives and competencies of a region in a new way and thus create the Silicon Valleys of tomorrow.
Bold paths for knowledge and technology transfer
As the next generation of regional innovation networks, future clusters are more dynamic and risk-taking than ever before. They stand for pioneering spirit, creativity and collaborative strength. Future clusters embody an open culture of innovation and risk-taking, in which relevant partners in burgeoning fields of technology and knowledge network in new ways. This gives rise to cross-industry, cross-topic, cross-technology and cross-disciplinary collaborations that generate new impetus and transcend boundaries. To this end, science, business and society are leaving well-trodden paths, overcoming systemic boundaries and creating new interfaces between different disciplines, between users, providers and producers.
*Source: https://www.bmbf.de/de/zukunftscluster-initiative-9195.html