The aim of the InnoRegioChallenge
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from the Stuttgart and Neckar-Alb regions that are active in the automotive or supplier industry can submit a challenge, for which researchers, students and start-ups from universities in both regions have the opportunity to present their solutions in a competition. Companies select teams and work together to prepare a project outline. Projects can receive up to €10,000 in funding.
What makes this special is that the InnoRegioChallenge is directly tailored to the needs of companies, as it enables the transfer of basic knowledge into the development of new technical products, materials, etc. In addition, it enables the implementation of innovative ideas and combines this with the opportunity to expand one's own network.
Advantages of the format
- Low effort for all participants
- Networking between industry and universities
- Many interesting questions
- Innovative solutions for challenging problems
The most important points at a glance:
Who can participate?
- Companies (SMEs and start-ups) from the automotive or supplier industry based in the Stuttgart or Neckar-Alb regions (submission of challenges).
- Universities in the Stuttgart and Neckar-Alb regions (researchers, scientific staff, students, doctoral candidates, start-ups)
How can a company participate?
The challenge must be submitted in the form of a completed registration form to the TRACES coordination office by email by 31 March. The completed template must be sent to challenges@traces.uni-stuttgart.de. Please send us a PDF with your signature.
The template can be found here and below under ‘Registration’: Anmeldeformular zur Einreichung der Challenge
Companies must have the personnel and time resources to support projects with selected teams at a later date.
How can a university participate?
By 14 March 2025, universities must name a contact person for the coordination of challenges and financial resources (registration). From 9 April 2025, universities will be able to view the challenges that have been submitted. They then have to register university teams to participate in the hackathon (pitch and match-making) at challenges@traces.uni-stuttgart.de until 28 April 2025. Please specify the selected challenges when registering.
Further steps can be found in the section: Schedule and procedure
To ensure a smooth start in March 2025, the procedure outlined below will be applied (subject to minor changes).
Submission of a challenge by a company based in the Stuttgart or Neckar-Alb regions
- Companies submit a challenge by email by 31 March: challenges@traces.uni-stuttgart.de
- Formalities: The challenge and formalities are described in a short form (see documents).
Application by universities
- By 14 March 2025, universities must name one contact person for the internal coordination of challenges (registration is informal and can be done via email: challenges@traces.uni-stuttgart.de).
- Once successfully registered, the university contact persons will be given access to the submitted challenges from 9 April 2025. University contact persons can forward these to research teams within their university.
- Each university may nominate a maximum of three teams per challenge for the hackathon (pitch day). If there are more than three registrations per challenge, the submitted solutions will be preselected within the respective university.
- Teams can register to participate in the hackathon (pitch and match-making) via email challenges@traces.uni-stuttgart.de. The selected challenges must be specified.
Hackathon and pitch
- At the hackathon on 14 May 2025 in Stuttgart, the university teams will present their approaches to solving the submitted challenge to the companies.
- The company will select the best idea and form a team with the university partner (known as ‘match-making’) and communicate its decision to the university partner network team by email (challenges@traces.uni-stuttgart.de).
- Teams not selected by companies can also develop their solutions and present them at Demo Day, but no financial support can be offered for this.
Joint development and submission of a project outline
- By 23 May 2025, the team consisting of companies and research groups will jointly develop a brief project outline (including a cost and work plan) based on the company challenge and a suitable solution approach.
- Projects can be supported with a maximum of €10,000 per project.
- The project outline should be submitted by email to: challenges@traces.uni-stuttgart.de
Start of projects
- Submitted outlines will be reviewed by 6 June 2025.
- If the total financial support for all submitted outlines exceeds the available funds, the projects will be ranked and selected.
- Project teams will receive final confirmation of their outline by email.
- Universities will receive information on the amount of financial support available for implementing their projects.
- Projects can still start in June 2025.
Project demo day
- The solutions developed will be presented to an audience on 14 October 2025.
Registration of challenges:
Companies must submit a challenge by 31 March 2025 using the completed registration form by email to: challenges@traces.uni-stuttgart.de (The registration form can be downloaded below under ‘Documents’).
Registration for universities:
- By 14 March 2025, universities must name one contact person for the internal coordination of challenges (registration) – email to challenges@traces.uni-stuttgart.de
- Teams wishing to participate in the hackathon (pitch and match-making) must register via email challenges@traces.uni-stuttgart.de
Submission of a project outline:
- By 23 May 2025, the team consisting of companies and universities will jointly develop a brief project outline (cost and work plan).
- The outline should be submitted by email to: challenges@traces.uni-stuttgart.de
The challenges and project outlines submitted will be preselected by the university partner network / CARS 2.0 team for suitability and reviewed according to the following criteria:
- Participating partners based in the Stuttgart or Neckar-Alb regions
- Specific research question from the fields of automotive engineering, mechanical engineering or related areas
- Pre-competitiveness – The results must not lead to unilateral competitive advantages for individual companies,which is why exclusive use of results by one or more companies is not permitted.
- Project results must be made publicly available
- Exploration and originality
- Sustainability and innovation potential
- Transfer and exploitation of results from an economic and/or social perspective
- Size of the company (smaller entities --> more evaluation points)
All documents relevant to the InnoRegioChallenge can be found here.
Kontakt
Tamara Arutyunyants
Head of Business Relations