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Startup Campus Alliance: Saxony and Thuringia in the deep tech spotlight!
On April 9, 2025, the “Startup Campus Alliance” was founded to sustainably promote entrepreneurship in Saxony and Thuringia.
Startup Campus Alliance: Saxony and Thuringia in the deep tech spotlight!
On April 9, 2025, the “Startup Campus Alliance” was founded at the University of Leipzig, a groundbreaking initiative that aims to intensify start-up support between universities in Saxony and Thuringia. The alliance brings together a total of ten universities: eight from Saxony and two from Thuringia. The founding members include the University of Leipzig, the Technical University of Dresden, the Technical University of Chemnitz, the TU Bergakademie Freiberg, the Dresden University of Applied Sciences, the Leipzig University of Technology, Economics and Culture, the Mittweida University of Applied Sciences and the HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management. The Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Ernst Abbe University Jena are participating from the Thuringian universities.
The main goals of the “Startup Campus Alliance” are the sustainable promotion of entrepreneurship and a targeted strengthening of the start-up culture in the region. In particular, Saxony and Thuringia are to be established as outstanding deep tech start-up regions in Germany. Deep Tech is technologies and companies based on significant scientific or technical innovations, which underpins the Alliance's strategic direction. Loud tu-freiberg.de In 2023, there were around 100 new startups in Saxony, of which more than 60 emerged from universities and research institutions.
Strategic pooling of forces
Utz Dornberger, professor of development economics and head of the Self-Management Initiative Leipzig (SMILE) at the University of Leipzig, was elected chairman of the newly founded non-profit association. The organizational basis offers a coordinating platform to strategically pool the forces of the universities. smile.uni-leipzig.de emphasizes that, in addition to the goal of developing innovative support offers for talent interested in starting a business, the alliance also creates common teaching formats and shared infrastructure.
The Rector of the University of Leipzig, Prof. Dr. Eva Inés Obergfell, emphasizes the importance of the alliance for the region's networking and innovative strength. The strategic bundling of resources shows how important it is to make the successes in the area of university spin-offs visible in order to strengthen the public perception of the start-up locations in Saxony and Thuringia.
Partnerships and future developments
Another pacesetter of the initiative are the partnerships with regional institutions such as the savings banks in Saxony and the SpinLab in Leipzig. The association plans to participate in the Business Opportunities Ost (boOst) Ecosystem gGmbH, which is in preparation. boOst gGmbH will seek support for knowledge-based spin-offs in the “Startup Factories” competition of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection. These measures are intended to sustainably promote startups in the region and increase the visibility of the successes achieved.
The “Startup Campus Alliance” therefore represents an important step towards promoting innovative strength and entrepreneurial spirit in Saxony and Thuringia and positioning the region as a leading center for deep tech start-ups in Germany. hs-mittweida.de points out that interdisciplinary collaboration and exchange between different universities will offer new perspectives for aspiring entrepreneurs.