The HSZG's Start-up Academy has a new face in Claudia Döring. In future, the focus will be on company succession and transfer.
Since May 2025, the start-up academy at Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences has had a new look. This is also associated with a reorientation in terms of content.
After an initial familiarization phase and the content concept, the new direction of the start-up academy is now clear. Reason enough for Prof. Dr. rer. pol. Sophia Keil, Vice President Research, Transfer and International Affairs, to officially welcome Claudia Döring, start-up consultant at Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences.
With the realignment of the Start-up Academy, we are strengthening founders, promoting company succession and knowledge transfer. I am delighted to welcome Ms. Döring to her new role and look forward to shaping this important path together with such a competent personality.
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In addition to the advisory services for those interested in setting up a business, there will also continue to be information events and workshops on the topics of start-ups and entrepreneurship. The main focus will continue to be on raising awareness of the topic.
However, there will be a new focus on company succession, which can also be seen as a start-up. In future, there will be close cooperation between the Start-up Academy and the FamilyBusinessInitiative@HSZG - headed by Prof. René Sadowski.
The FamilyBusinessInitiative@HSZG focuses on the challenges of company succession in our region. The aim is to develop solutions together with the companies and to raise the profile of our university in this area. The project is based on three pillars: Practice-oriented research, knowledge and skills development and an annual conference of Saxon family businesses.
Saxony is the land of entrepreneurs. In the coming years, the successful organization of over 10,000 successions will determine the future of our economy and society. As a place for the next generation, the HSZG assumes responsibility - and brings together partners from science, business and society to rethink leadership and succession in family businesses.
”What is also new is that we will focus even more strongly than before on the transfer of our research projects and further intensify and expand cooperation with the research institutes that are settling here, such as the German Center for Astrophysics (DZA) in Görlitz, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Zittau and the Fraunhofer Institute in Zittau, in order to strengthen our region and create new jobs.
The HSZG's own research projects will also become a greater focus of the start-up academy in order to sustainably secure the research results acquired and make them accessible to a large number of people.
I am very grateful that I can help shape the Start-up Academy with my own ideas and content. Because I want to provide impetus that helps to develop companies and find new perspectives. And that's why it's so exciting to discover and support the multitude of ideas and opportunities and thus contribute to the development of our region.
”We are taking another new approach: skills are important in many situations and specialist areas. As before, the skills required to pursue a profession are taught and tested in the respective subjects. At the same time, the VIA Character Strengths are now being added to the range. This replaces the previous KODE® skills assessment.
By using the VIA Character Strengths, the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences also supports students, entrepreneurs and business founders in achieving international success.
The VIA character strengths are positive traits that are present in every person to varying degrees and significantly shape the soft skills of every person. They are based on positive psychology and can be used in a variety of ways - by coaches & consultants, managers, teachers and families, among others.
The VIA Character Strengths combine research and practice and are an international system that is constantly being further developed and researched. What is special about this system is that it is universal, multidimensional and international thanks to in-depth literature research and worldwide practical research - and even applies to marginalized cultural groups such as the Masai or the Inuit.
At the same time, the VIA character strengths also do justice to every individual: after all, there are 75 trillion times more combinations of strengths than there are people in the world.
Further information: Via Institute on Character