How can innovation be spurred? Through cross-industry collaboration and entrepreneurial networking. That was the tenor of the second Innovation Zurich event at the Innovation Park Zurich. With over 150 participants, examples from the medtech and cleantech sectors in particular were discussed.
It is still not a common occurrence for experts from different fields to join forces. "In the process, co-creations enable new perspectives and thus new solutions to problems," said Carmen Walker Späh, the Canton of Zurich's Director of Economic Affairs, at the second event of the Innovation Zurich platform. More than 150 participants had the opportunity to think outside the box. With a focus on medtech and cleantech, Zurich institutions and companies showed how they live cross-industry innovation and what docking points there are. The topic is central to Innovation Zurich: Initiated in 2022 by the cantonal Division of Business and Economic Development, the Greater Zurich Area location marketing organization and Innovation Park Zurich, the platform now networks around 700 players in innovation ecosystems.
The evolution from cleantech to medtech of Zurich-based greenteg is a prime example of cross-industry innovation. CEO Wulf Glatz presented the story behind it. The ETH spin-off started in 2009 with its greenteg technology, a scalable heat flow sensor. The founders saw its future in a cleantech application in terms of thermoelectric generators, but implementation was difficult. Wulf Glatz: "So we considered which sector could still benefit from our technology." As a result, the sensor was established in the building sector for measurement purposes. Currently, its use in a portable device is very successful in professional sports, for example - several Olympic athletes use it to control their temperature. Work is underway on further medtech development.
Claudia Scheckel is co-founder and CEO of the Schlieremer UZH spin-off Oncobit. She reported how interdisciplinary collaboration, even across university boundaries, has reduced the burden on cancer patients. Oncobit test procedures with proprietary software enable, among other things, uncomplicated testing and analysis of blood samples for cancer markers.
Oncobit was supported by Innosuisse, the Swiss Agency for Innovation Promotion. The company is now part of the new Healthtech Park in Schlieren near Zurich. Such infrastructures help to ensure that innovative cross-connections are perceived and opportunities exploited. The Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research Empa, with sites in Dübendorf, St. Gallen and Thun BE, is also increasingly functioning as a driver of innovation. This was explained by Empa Director Tanja Zimmermann. As an interdisciplinary research institute with around 600 scientists, Empa sees itself as a bridge between research and practice. The five focus areas range from the built environment to health and energy - paralleling key sectors of the Swiss economy as transfer takes center stage. Tanja Zimmermann said, "Problems are becoming more and more complex." Excellent basic skills are needed to enable multidisciplinary syntheses.
The panel discussion, moderated by SRF journalist Kathrin Hönegger, focused on the prerequisites for successful cross-industry innovations. Empa Director Tanja Zimmermann emphasized: "We are finding out how helpful a structure with strong horizontal networking is. Silo thinking must become a thing of the past. Martin Kayser, as CTO of the Wyss Zurich Center, agreed. The center is a joint accelerator of UZH and ETH Zurich, bringing together multidisciplinary teams for translational research in regenerative medicine and robotics. According to Kayser, infrastructure could still be expanded in terms of shared use, for example. But in general, there is no lack of top projects at the site. "There is often a lack of entrepreneurial thinking," he said, urging experienced entrepreneurs to become even more involved in the innovation process of startups.
Meeting people from the business world in particular, exchanging ideas - according to Stefan Leuthold, that is a key to bridging the gap between research and the market. The cluster manager of the Health Tech Cluster Switzerland and CEO of the Healthtechpark Schlieren summed it up in his experience: "It needs coffee breaks or as the Swiss say 'Kafichränzli'." With the help of mutual support, Zurich's locational advantage of cutting-edge research could be fully leveraged. And greenteg founder Wulf Glatz added: "Meeting spaces like those created by today's event promote the ecosystem enormously." That's what they want to achieve with the Innovation Zurich initiative. "It's about trust through physical proximity," concluded Fabian Streiff, the head of the canton's location promotion department.