Public event 2018

The public event “r+Impuls – balance after three years” took place on 13 and 14 November 2018 in the Abion Spreehotel in Berlin. “r+Impuls” is a funding program of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), which focuses on supporting innovative technologies to improve sustainable resource utilization that are venturing the step towards industrial application.

Following a poster session with networking the evening before, the event started on the morning of 14 November. Dr. Helmut Löwe from the funding agency BMBF welcomed the 80 participants with a presentation on BMBF’s research for sustainable development (FONA). Dr. Christian Sartorius from Fraunhofer ISI, coordinator of the transfer project “r+TeTra”, outlined the “r+Impuls” funding program and introduced the day’s schedule.

Subsequently, seven consortia presented reports on their almost completed R&D projects; ten others gave information about the interim status of their R&D activities. This prompted lively discussions – not only of the technical and economic aspects of the innovations, but of their legal and ecological aspects as well. When summing up, Dr. Sartorius emphasized the impressive results and progress achieved in the projects as well as the discussions enjoyed during the event. At the same time, it became very clear that not only technical but also economic and legal challenges have to be mastered for broad access to the market. Dr. Löwe closed the event.

Before the public part of the event, there was an internal meeting of project participants, the Projektträger Jülich and the funding agency as well as some of the expert reviewers on the afternoon of 13 November in order to welcome three new projects at a kick-off event and to discuss future networking and transfer activities in “r+Impuls”.