AWARDING OF THE NEULAND INNOVATION AWARDS 2023

Tradition for 11 years

At the end of last year, we again called upon all scientific employees at KIT to participate in the NEULAND Innovation Contest. Until the application deadline on March 31, we received numerous innovative ideas within the two categories Idea Award and Transfer Award. The independent, 6-member jury was then spoiled for choice: A total of 24 applications received from committed scientists had to be sifted and ranked. After two hours of intensive deliberation, the jury members agreed on the three most convincing ideas and transfer projects.

Nominated ideas

The following three teams were successful in the Ideas Award category (listed according to time of receipt of application):

• "FastForm - Accelerated and high-quality battery production through intelligent forming" by TT.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Helge S. Stein, Dr. Katarina Cicvaric, Leon Merker, Bojing Zhang, Institute for Physical Chemistry (IPC) & Helmholtz Institute Ulm (HIU).
•  "HVBatt – Next Generation High Voltage Batteries for High Performance Applications" by Dr. Pirmin Stüble, Dr. Andreas Hofmann, Dr. Marcus Müller, D. Joachim R. Binder, Institute for Applied Materials – Energy Storage Systems (IAM-ESS) & Institute for Applied Materials – Materials Science (IAM-WK).
• "VeganValve – 3D bio-printing of personalized bio-heart valves and cartilage implants from vegan gelatin materials" by Prof. Dr. Ute Schepers, Prof. Dr. Stefan Bräse, Alisa Grimm, Sonja Leopold, Sven Weber, Institute for Functional Interfaces (IFG).
   

Nominated transfer projects

In the Transfer Award category, the following three projects were successfully transferred into practice last year and convinced the jury of their innovative strength (listed according to time of receipt of application):

• "3D laser nanoprinting with two-stage absorption" by Prof. Dr. Martin Wegener, Institute for Applied Physics (APH) & Nanoscribe GmbH & Co. KG
• "Phytonics – Biomimetic anti-reflective film for solar modules" by Prof. Uli Lemmer, Dr. Ruben Hünig, Lichttechnisches Institut (LTI) & Phytonics GmbH
• "SilOriX - Efficient. Compact. Fast. Electro-optical modulators for a digital future" by Dr.-Ing. Carsten Eschenbaum, Prof. Dr. Christian Koos, Prof. Dr. Sebastian Randel, Prof. Dr. Jan Korvink, Institute for Photonics and Quantum Electronics (IPQ) & Institute for Microstructure Technology (IMT).
   

It remains exciting

Which team or project scored highest with the jury in the two categories remains exciting. The Vice President for Transfer and International Affairs, Prof. Dr. Thomas Hirth, will announce the winners at the Open Day of KIT on June 17th. We cordially invite you to join us live on Campus North. At 11:30 a.m., we will announce the winners on the main stage and provide exciting insights into research with short 1-minute videos on all nominated ideas and projects.

You can find more information about the open day here.