What we can offer to industry partners

Research collaboration projects are usually medium-term to long-term. They are set up with open goals and without any pre-determined outcome. The partners involved have a common research and publication interest. All of them contribute to the research goal.

This form of collaboration is particularly suitable for projects oriented towards basic research, in which the path to commercial application is usually still quite far. Research cooperation is an important instrument to make technologies and know-how developed at GEOMAR available to society or industry, and vice versa for GEOMAR to get impulses from there for our research.

The equipment and infrastructures of GEOMAR are available to commercial cooperation partners, usually for a fee. For more information on our equipment, please view our page on ships and technology.

Compared to research collaboration, the purpose of contract research is more explicit. Contract research is goal-oriented without a pre-determined outcome. Projects are usually medium-term to short-term. GEOMAR will act as contractor, but have an interest in the results and in publishing them.

Contract research is more applicated and thus a good way of further developing research results from GEOMAR and taking them closer to economic application. Again, also from this form of cooperation, GEOMAR can expect to get valuable impulses from the industry.

Based on its knowledge and know-how, GEOMAR will be pleased to offer consulting. This may be by direct transfer of knowledge, by providing expert advice e.g. to governmental agencies. Other cases may involve classical consulting by providing expertises or reports to the industry.

For inventions that have a sufficient level of innovation, GEOMAR will seek patents for various markets. GEOMAR's property rights can be licensed to partners from economy and industry

When a spin-off is founded, know-how, expertise and technologies developed at GEOMAR all with the experts backing them are directly transferred into the economy. This option is to be preferred when technologies are market-ready and commercial exploitation appears promising. After the spin-off, the newly founded companies are subject to the laws of the market and are completely independent of GEOMAR.