Combining economic and ecological thinking in a targeted way right from the start-up: A new article by the University of Oldenburg highlights how the Founding and Innovation Center (GIZ) and the extraordinary professorship for Innovation Management and Sustainability (PIN) pursue this goal. It praises the university's sustainability efforts as well as highlighting important PIN projects, methods and modules. 

For example, reference is made to the PIN project Sustainability4All, which develops measures to integrate climate protection and sustainability into newly founded companies at an early stage. The module Sustainable Venturing, which has been running since 2009, is also highlighted, in which students develop sustainable business ideas together with regional start-ups or established companies.

This interlinking of research, teaching and start-up consultancy is a pioneering approach – and a recipe for success. "It is more important than ever that we, as a university, support start-ups at all levels in matters of sustainability. After all, these companies have the potential to become key players on the path to a truly challenging transformation which we as a society must accomplish," stresses PIN-Leader Prof. Dr. Klaus Fichter.

To the article

How can a new culture of innovation be created to find solutions to major societal challenges - such as energy supply, climate change and migration - more quickly? PIN will develop ideas on this question in the coming months in dialogue with the public. The project "Demokratisierung von Innovation” (Democratisation of Innovation) in the programme "Zukunftsdiskurse” (Discourses on the Future) is funded by the Lower Saxony state government with up to 120,000 euros. It has a duration of 15 months.

In the classic economic perspective, innovations come primarily from companies and inventors, while users and consumers are attributed a rather passive role. However, this image has changed in the meantime: "Increasingly, civil society actors are actively participating in the innovation process from non-economic roles, thereby accelerating transformation processes," says PIN director Prof. Dr. Klaus Fichter. This is the basic idea behind the democratisation of innovations. The future discourse focuses on the question of how students can initiate and develop sustainability-oriented innovations together with companies.

The events are aimed at students, teachers, university administrators as well as representatives of companies, trade associations, start-up support institutions, civil society initiatives and politics. An opening event with lectures, workshops and panel discussions is planned, as well as a working conference, for the preparation of which interviews with experts will be conducted, and online discourse formats. In a final event, the project team will present an impulse paper and discuss it with all participants.  

The "Zukunftsdiskurse” (Discourses on the Future) programme was announced for the fifth time in 2022. It aims to strengthen the role of universities and research institutions as a source of impulses for society. It is aimed at humanities and social science disciplines that take up social debates with their research results and present and discuss them in public events.

To the press release of the University of Oldenburg

To the press release of the MWK

The Journal of Cleaner Production has now published a special issue on assessing and forecasting the impact of new ventures on sustainability. PIN Director Prof. Dr. Klaus Fichter is the corresponding author as well as managing guest editor.

Edited by Klaus Fichter, Florian Lüdeke-Freund, Stefan Schaltegger, Simon Schillebeeckx

Start-ups are key actors in environmental innovation. Thus, the sustainability impact of young ventures is central to both cleaner production and entrepreneurship research. As such, we should examine “how, by whom, and with what effects opportunities to create future goods and services are discovered, evaluated, and exploited”.

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