University reaffirms its driver role for entrepreneurship – strong partners, clear focus on impact
Darmstadt, October 30, 2025 – With INNODAY25, Technische Universität Darmstadt reaffirms its ambition to be a leading engine for Deep-Tech start-ups in Germany. As one of the country’s most innovative technical universities with top national rankings, TU Darmstadt aims to deliver tangible impact through excellent research, a vibrant start-up culture, and active exchange, President Prof. Dr. Tanja Brühl emphasized at the opening. The university’s impact spans the entire pathway from a lab idea to a market-ready product. Together with partners such as FUTURY, the university is accelerating the route to application, strengthening value creation, and thus contributing to the future viability and resilience of business and society.
What this looks like in practice is showcased in today’s program: exhibitors from research and start-ups, keynotes and pitches, and concrete transfer formats – the most important figures and highlights at a glance:
At the darmstadtium congress center, more than 1,450 visitors meet over 100 exhibitors from the start-up, research, and corporate communities. They present new technologies, prototypes, and venture concepts from across the Rhine-Main region, connect talent with capital and industry, and demonstrate why Darmstadt sets nationwide benchmarks as a city of science and technology hub. INNODAY is organized by HIGHEST, TU Darmstadt’s innovation and start-up center, and is taking place for the ninth time this year. It has established itself as a platform for science entrepreneurs, companies, and researchers.
Dr. Walter Fischedick, Head of the Division for Digital Economy, Start-ups and Innovation at the Hessian Ministry for Digitalization and Innovation, framed the day as a clear signal for the state’s innovation landscape: “Hesse has a strong digital and innovation ecosystem. When universities, start-ups, and companies collaborate as closely as they do here, solutions emerge that secure our competitiveness and deliver societal benefit.”
Hanno Benz, Lord Mayor and Head of Economic Affairs of the City of Science Darmstadt, also highlighted the format’s reach: “For several years now, INNODAY has shown how consistently Darmstadt lives innovation. Young entrepreneurs find an excellent environment here to put their ideas into practice: With TU Darmstadt, the local universities, numerous research institutes, and both large and small companies, Darmstadt offers an outstanding start-up network, further supported by institutions such as Hub31. This is how ideas become applications, research becomes value creation – and how encounters at formats like INNODAY lead to valuable collaborations that have a lasting impact on the City of Science Darmstadt and the region.”
Harald Holzer, Managing Director of HIGHEST, underlined the importance of TU Darmstadt’s transfer backbone: “With HIGHEST and formats like INNODAY, we open the door from the lab to the market. Our new core offerings – the HIGHEST Company Builder and the Startup Academy – provide start-ups and researchers with the structure, mentoring, and access they need for validation, financing, and scaling. Together with FUTURY, we are accelerating this journey even further.”
INNODAY25 spans topics from AI, production, and energy to mobility, security, and advanced materials. Center stage are TU Darmstadt Deep-Tech teams bringing their technologies to market maturity with support from industry partners, investors, and the strong network of the Rhine-Main Universities (RMU). By tightening the bridges between research, entrepreneurship, and industry, the university is becoming an accelerator for focused knowledge transfer.
Today is an open invitation to students, researchers, and corporate partners to help shape the next wave of technological solutions from Darmstadt. TU Darmstadt is building on its proven strengths: excellent research, a professional transfer setup, and an ecosystem that nurtures talent and systematically turns technologies into real-world applications. INNODAY25 shows how this interplay succeeds – and the role Darmstadt plays nationally and internationally.