Industry-oriented Digital Transformation in Universities to Facilitate Knowledge Transfer

The industry faces nowadays major challenges in creating new and innovative business models. Especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) lack own research departments and qualified personnel for new technologies and business models. Simultaneously, SMEs are often unsure, if their needs are understood and addressed by universities and hesitate to contact them. Actually, many universities do have very relevant technologies for such companies and strive for an increase in joint research and transfer activities. However, universities must change and simplify their inner structures in order to accomplish a structural embodiment of transfer and become more customer-oriented and quicker.