30/07/2025

Print Page

Biomedical Research: Forum Health Research Issues Recommendations to Promote Academic Spin-offs

Strengthening spin-offs of biomedical start-ups from academic institutions — the Forum Health Research has developed concrete recommendations for this purpose. The goal: to bring innovative biomedical products and technologies into practical and economic application as quickly as possible, thereby improving care for patients. To promote the transfer of research results through spin-offs, the Forum Health Research issues recommendations, among other things, to improve the framework conditions for spin-off processes as well as to strengthen the founding culture and education for entrepreneurship. The DZG are itself involved in the Forum Health Research and supports its recommendations.

Spin-offs of start-ups play an important role in transferring biomedical research results from academic institutions into economic application. Germany still has catching up to do in innovation transfer and spin-offs. To better utilize existing potentials and promote spin-offs in biomedical research, the Forum Health Research aims to contribute to improvement with its recommendation paper developed in exchange with numerous stakeholders. It is addressed to university and non-university research institutions and their researchers as well as to regulators, legislators, funding organizations, and investors.
Contributions from all involved actors are necessary to streamline the processes for spin-offs in biomedical research, create incentives, promote cultural change, and enable more flexibility. The recommendation paper shows numerous positive examples both in Germany and internationally and provides concrete recommendations on how these can be expanded, adapted, and further developed. The coalition agreement of the federal government also foresees measures to strengthen start-ups.

Forum Health Research Issues 21 Concrete Recommendations
The 21 recommendations specifically and practically address the framework conditions for spin-off processes, the strengthening of founding culture and education for entrepreneurship, permeability between industry, start-ups, and academic institutions, capital acquisition, as well as the design of participation forms and licensing modalities.

Among other things, the Forum Health Research recommends:

  • More strongly considering transfer-relevant criteria in internal resource allocation mechanisms such as performance-based funding (LOM), or weighting transfer achievements more in appointment and contract renewal decisions, and anchoring this also in habilitation regulations.
  • Promoting the shift toward a science culture more strongly characterized by transfer orientation. This could be achieved, for example, by communicating transfer successes by academic institutions or by publicly highlighting transfer as a socially relevant task, including at the political level.
  • Introducing flexible career paths for researchers who want to bring their research results into application through the founding of a start-up, explicitly allowing transitions between university, non-university research, and industry. Failure of a start-up should not be viewed as a disadvantage upon desired return to academic positions.
  • Accelerating processes for handling intellectual property (IP) and negotiating possible participation of academic institutions in a start-up. For example, IP valuation and contract conclusion between the scientific institution and spin-off should be completed within twelve weeks. Institutions should align with internationally recognized guidelines.

The recommendations of the Forum Health Research are supplemented by a compilation of strategy papers, tools, and examples, as well as notes on current bureaucratic reduction processes and reimbursement pathways for innovations.

Link to original press release (German)

Link to DLR Project Management Agency (German)

Download Recommendation Paper (German)

Link to the Forum Health Research