Expert study by Brugger, Teichert, Neumann, Dodt

A new place of innovation is to be created in the region, but for what exactly?

There is already an idea and funding is available, but how exactly should the Innovation Lab be designed?

Didn't pay attention at the right moment in the meeting and now you're supposed to be planning an innovation lab?

Our checklist for designing innovation labs provides orientation and helps to structure the planning work. However, this is not a linear process: Previous results have to be accessed again and again, checked and adjusted if necessary.

In addition, a participatory process should be aimed for, in which the questions are worked on together with the project partners, stakeholders and, above all, the target groups. This is the only way to create a place that is geared to the actual needs of the region and that can deliver real added value for the innovation ecosystem.

The checklist is divided into five parts: 

1. Part: Strategic positioning and target image
2. Part: usage concept
3. Part: operating model and financing concept
4. Part: Spatial concept and equipment
5. Part: implementation and testing

Based on the strategic positioning described in parts 1 and 2, the target image and the usage concept, part 3 is about developing the operating model and the financing concept.

Part 3: Operating model and financing concept

• What are the expected costs? 
  It is about first identifying the relevant types of costs such as personnel costs, operating costs, investment costs and breaking them down. The amount of the costs depends primarily on the developed usage concept and the room concept and the equipment (part 4 of our series).
• What contribution to costs or income do the individual offers and programs make? 
  Again based on the usage concept, it should be estimated which offers could be carried out how often, with which staff and which equipment, what specific costs would arise and what income could be generated. This look into the crystal ball is of course initially about a rough estimate in order to get a feeling for possible total volumes and the connections between supply and costs or income.  
• What staff is required? 
  There are often already commitments in regions for investments or advanced construction projects that are to be put to use. When it comes to staff planning and staff funding, things tend to look rather thin. In our experience, however, the right staff is crucial for success. Especially when building and establishing the innovation location, people are needed who are passionate about the idea and able to transfer their enthusiasm to potential partners. Accordingly, sufficient staff positions should be planned for the network work, which is important at the beginning, but also for the other fields of activity. 
• What can different financing models look like? 
  When it comes to financing, the various models always range between private financing and economic orientation and public financing and non-profit orientation. In practice, mixed models are the rule. It is important to plan various sources of income that ensure basic financing, but also to plan for income from unusual offers, for example through business partnerships. At this point at the latest, the sticking points often arise in the feasibility studies and important strategic decisions have to be made, which are then often associated with the question of sponsorship. 
• What does this mean for the support structure? 
  In addition to the question of the legal form and the corresponding construction of the support structure, it is essential which institutions are able and also promise to be involved in a support structure. In addition to public institutions, foundations and companies are also important sponsors who should not only contribute financially, but also in the strategic design. Therefore, the support model should be designed in such a way that smooth business operations are possible, but a broad integration of the different target groups and partners in the support model is made possible, thus ensuring the acceptance and sustainable design of the innovation location. 
• Who runs the place? 
  The actual sponsorship of the innovation location is initially detached from the operator question. Ownership and operation do not necessarily have to be in one hand. When constructing the operating model, it is important to ensure access for the target groups, partners or third parties.  
• What can different expansion stages look like? 
  As a rule, various expansion stages should be planned for the first few years. Even before the completion of buildings, the preparatory work or even the first activities, such as test offers (see part 5), should be started. The distribution of the investment costs over the first few years must be closely coordinated with the usage concept. 
• Check suitability for current and upcoming funding programs.
  It is necessary to examine how the individual stages of development can be supported by possible funding programs. As a rule, the entire project does not have to be funded, so individual funding modules should be planned. In addition to clustering according to investments or the didactic development of formats, for example, a distinction should also be made between start-up financing in the development phase and possible funding, for example through specialist programs or R&D projects in the operation of the innovation location. 

Part 4: Room concept and equipment in the next newsletter 5|22 …

Hi Anna,
you are an expert in the development of technology and start-up centers. You have been a consultant at matrix in the Creative Hubs & Labs department since the beginning of August. Warm welcome!

What is happening in this exciting field of technology and start-up centers?
For a long time, start-up and technology centers were closely tied to a funding logic that primarily ensured that space was rented without always paying close attention to who was moving in and whether such an innovative environment could develop. Today, the funding focuses much more on the fact that synergies can arise between founders, start-ups and established companies that come together. Ideally, there will also be a university and a vocational school as well. When set up correctly, an entire innovation ecosystem develops, which is linked to other facilities such as a FabLab or a MakerSpace.  

You've been with the matrix since the beginning of August. What made you come to the matrix? 
I particularly like the fact that very different people from different areas with very different qualifications work here. They bring very different perspectives: from the industrial designer, the product designer to the economist, the geographer to the communication expert. Everyone can contribute their strengths and experience here. It is a very good team working on this subject area Creative Hubs & Labs. The matrix has also taken up the cause of rethinking the topic of innovation centers together with partners. I find that super exciting. And the connection with STEM education at matrix also offers many opportunities. How can you bring innovation and founding to the students early on? This is a very exciting and demanding task. 

What skills can you contribute here? 
I come from the "classic" economic development consultancy. One focus of mine was the development of start-up and technology centers. I have several years of experience here, also far beyond NRW. I covered the whole range: from the new concept to the evaluation. I can put my knowledge of business administration to good use here. The topic of innovation is really important to me, because that's the only way we can advance the location and society as a whole. I want to make a difference. That's why I fit in well with the matrix.  

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The FabAcademy in Jordan as an opportunity provider

Adriana, matrix's expert for FabLabs, digital prototyping and smart textiles, has just returned from Jordan. She is also an instructor at the FabAcademy and has accompanied her on-site study group at the Crown Prince Foundation's FabLab TechWorks.  

Jordan? What are the benefits of a FabLab in Jordan? What is the FabAcademy doing there? Jordan is a country with an extremely heterogeneous population in terms of social aspects and education. TechWorks, on the other hand, is open to everyone. Here people who want to learn can deal with digital manufacturing processes and modern production technologies without formal education. In the FabLab you will find the necessary technology, qualified support from specialist staff and exchange in the community. According to the FabLab motto "How to make (almost) anything", they experience self-efficacy and develop further. This opens up completely new opportunities for them. In addition to this individual level, the FabLab wants to initiate foundations in Jordan and creates the opportunity to change society. Because projects by FabLabs have a direct impact on the local environment, such as Amin Yousef's project, who developed a 3D-printed hand prosthesis for total mobilization of the hand, or Suha Mohammad Al Habashneh's Water-Saver project, which is based on it aims to save water when filling tanks, one of the biggest problems in Jordan, the country with the second greatest water shortage in the world. 

Finally, they implement their individual, self-designed project and also qualify in project management. At the end, participants can then independently carry out and manage digital production projects in a FabLab. Many of these participants later become instructors themselves and carry on the spirit of the FabLabs or even found their own labs, as three of Adriana's participants did this year. It was the same with Adriana herself. She graduated from the FabAcademy in 2016. Since then she has been passionate about the idea and has already implemented numerous projects. She is currently leading the shemakes.eu project on behalf of matrix and is part of the MakeOpaedics project. But now she is particularly excited about the graduation of her study group in Jordan. I wish you success! 

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The historic Waidhaus in Görlitz was used in the past as a competence center for further training for craftsmen of various trades in the field of monument restoration. The development company Niederschlesische Oberlausitz mbH has now started a process for the further development of the center with an international orientation in the local border triangle of Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic and commissioned matrix with a feasibility study for the new concept. The target group includes not only interested craftsmen: inside, but also the citizenry and tourist visitors: inside. The tradition of restoration should be made visible to the general public with exciting co-creative approaches and create agile forms of learning and thus the first modern innovation place for monument preservation. 

3 questions for Benedikt M. Hummel, Mayor for Culture, Youth, Schools, Sports, Social Affairs, Building and Urban Development of the City of Görlitz.

Can you please briefly summarize the project from your point of view? Why is? 
In the Görlitzer Waidhaus, the oldest surviving secular building in the city, the German Foundation for Monument Protection ran a monument academy for more than twenty years, in which a craftsman's training course for "restorers in the craft" was run by the Görlitzer Training Center for Crafts and Monument Preservation eV. 

The tradition of teaching traditional craft techniques for the renovation and restoration of monuments is now to be continued in a sustainable manner. Face-to-face and online formats are to be developed and used for this as required. The impact of the project includes local, regional and international levels and will place a special focus on the border triangle Germany-Poland-Czech Republic. School and tourism formats ensure that the information can also be conveyed by third parties in an appropriate manner and that it reaches professional customers and laypeople alike. In this sense, the Görlitz "Competence Center for Craftsmanship in Monument Restoration" is intended to make a lasting contribution to the care and communication of national and international cultural heritage. 

What are the challenges? What opportunities do you see?  
In practically every federal state there are one or more 'monument centres' which deal with different concepts for the maintenance and restoration of monuments. The challenge is that there is no adequate commercial or educational market for the automatic maintenance of the centers. Chambers of crafts regularly support the respective concerns or are even involved in the financing, but see no possibility of integrating the complete canon of restorer training into the standard craft training. On the other hand, there is a lack of economic motivation for post-qualification, since the proportion of manual work in monuments is comparatively marginal almost everywhere.  

Due to the outstanding inventory of around 4.000 monuments, Görlitz was and is a disproportionate market, which on the one hand is not representative, but on the other hand is ideally suited as a place for restoration training courses in the future. The development of a network with comparable providers, which goes hand in hand with the project development, ensures that synergies are used and competition is avoided.   

What is the significance of the project and the Waidhaus for the city of Görlitz?
The unique density of monuments from different eras, which characterize the townscape of Görlitz, represents an essential and valuable asset for the town, which must be preserved. The creation and transfer of intellectual capital and technical skills in the preservation of monuments is therefore of considerable importance. For this reason, establishing a center for this exchange of knowledge in our city seems logical and also coherently anchored at the location of the Waidhaus in the heart of the city.