I think the strength of Saarland is "short ways." It means we can implement innovation much faster than in other parts of Europe.
On the 15th local time at the Center for Mechatronics and Automation Technology (ZeMA) in Saarbrücken, Professor Susanne Pullem said the strong physical and social proximity among decision-makers in politics, corporations, and research institutes in Saarland allows rapid progress on joint projects and technology commercialization.
With a population of about 1 million, Saarland is the second smallest in Germany by population and economic size. It grew around coal and steel but, amid the decline of the coal industry and the restructuring of traditional manufacturing, has expanded investment in advanced industries.
In May, Saarland officially launched the Saarland Engineering Institute (SEI). It institutionalized cooperation that had relied on personal ties among researchers. In addition to existing institutional grants, 33.8 million euros (about 58 billion won) from the State Governments budget will be injected. The strategy is to link major research institutions and universities with advanced research capabilities into a single system and overcome the limits of small scale based on fast decision-making.
SEI has three main goals: building an official cooperation platform consolidating engineering research institutes with universities and industry in Saarland; promoting Saarland's research capabilities externally; and training engineering talent. The main pillars are three: ZeMA, the Center for Intelligent Material Systems (CiMS), and the Hydrogen Application Technology Transfer Center (HyCATT).
ZeMA focuses on automated assembly of automobile parts, and on robots and manufacturing artificial intelligence (AI), in collaboration with companies such as Germany's BMW. CiMS aims to realize smart materials such as shape-memory alloys and electroactive polymers into actual products. HyCATT provides application technologies across the entire value chain—from hydrogen production to storage, distribution, and use—so that Saarland's traditional manufacturing companies can transition to the hydrogen industry.
Pullem said, "For us, innovation does not mean only basic research," adding, "We have to create business models and new application fields." She noted, "The top interest of the supporting department, Saarland's Ministry of Economic Affairs, is also business models," and "The key is how the regional economy can benefit from the knowledge gained through research."
If SEI is the hub that unifies research capacity in engineering, Saarbrücken also has a closely knit research ecosystem to support it. Centered on Saarland University, specialized research institutes are clustered, including the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), the Max Planck Institutes for Informatics and Software Systems, and the Fraunhofer Institute for Nondestructive Testing. Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) opened its Europe Research Center on the Saarland University campus 30 years ago and has continued science and technology cooperation.
These consolidation and agglomeration effects appear not only in engineering but also in pharmaceutical research. The Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS), jointly established in 2009 by the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and Saarland University, is searching for new antibiotic candidates from natural products through public research. The threat of multidrug-resistant microbes, the so-called superbugs, is growing, but antibiotics are a field with low profitability, so pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to invest.
Christine Bemelmans, head of the HIPS division for anti-infectives from microorganisms, explained, "Cancer drugs may be taken for months to years, and cardiovascular drugs can be taken for a lifetime," adding, "The better antibiotics work, the faster treatment ends." She said the role of public research institutions is crucial because, in a market structure where better treatment outcomes shorten dosing duration and reduce sales volume, incentives are weak.
HIPS researchers are focusing on developing into new drugs the antimicrobial substances produced by myxobacteria, predatory microorganisms that live in soil. Within the HIPS building, all steps needed for drug discovery—from myxobacteria cultivation to metabolite extraction, purification, and evaluation—are carried out. Adoption of AI tailored to each lab's characteristics is also active.
As HIPS has recently increased its research personnel and fields, the facilities are also expanding. The second expansion building, completed this year and set for official opening in Sep., has already welcomed some researchers who have begun their work. The third research building is slated for completion in 2029.