Between elites and innovative regional development

Prof. Raj Kollmorgen (Faculty ofSocial Sciences/TRAWOS Institute), who currently serves as Prorector for Research at our university, has secured two externally funded projects with federal grants, which are now getting underway.

Over the next three years (2022–2025), the Federal Government (Federal Government officer for Eastern Germany) will provide over 1 million euros in funding for a collaborative project titled “Elite Monitor—Underrepresentation of East Germans in Key Leadership Positions: Temporal Development, Mechanisms, and Options for Action.” As part of the planned establishment of an “Elite Monitor” for the Federal Republic of Germany, the subproject at the TRAWOS Institute of the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences—funded with a total of 200,000 euros—pursues two objectives: to explore the factors and mechanisms that lead to this underrepresentation, and to develop evidence-based recommendations for action. In addition to East Germans, the project includes other underrepresented groups in its analysis. This makes it possible to examine both group-specific and general mechanisms of exclusion and marginalization in the course of elite recruitment. The project is being carried out in collaboration with the Universities of Leipzig (Prof. A. Lorenz/Dr. L. Vogel, consortium leaders) and Jena (Prof. M. Reiser).

On September 1, as part of the WIR Alliance “Lausitz – Life & Technology,” a new strategy project will begin at the HSZG (ZIT), building on previous funding while also setting new priorities under the title:“L&T Strategy, Sustainability, and Transfer Analysis.”The project is funded by the BMBF with a total of 400,000 euros through 2025. Leonie Liemich is coordinating the project, and with the collaboration of Bert Salomo and Sven Müller, it focuses both on the practical management of the joint project and the alliance, as well as on the scientific analysis of regional innovation and technology transfer processes in the alliance’s R&D innovation fields (I. Additive Manufacturing, II. Networked Energy Systems and Storage Technologies, and III. Attractive Environments for Education, Work, and Living) of the alliance. The plan is to intensify cluster formation and value-added activities in the (Upper) Lausitz region during the second phase of the alliance’s work and to create the conditions for sustaining the innovation and diffusion processes beyond 2025.