How students learn innovation and applied research by doing

Cooperation between university and industry for technology transfer is not only useful for industry but also for students. In the Fraunhofer Institute of the author about 40 projects annually for individual companies as well as cooperative research projects with many partners for international programs such as EUREKA, ESPRIT, COMETT are carried out. Students are involved in many ways as part time assistants or during their intermediate and diploma thesis projects as well as PhD thesis and contribute significantly to the R&D. By being member of a team of professionals they learn about their later work in industry to the extent that they get ideas for their career planning and even consider to become entrepreneurs themselves.