"Marine Cluster" wins "Clusters4Future" competition of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research
The future cluster Ocean Technology Campus (OTC) Rostock wins the nationwide competition of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research "Clusters4Future". This means that the development of Rostock into a top location for underwater technology will be funded over the next three years with almost 15 million euros from the Future Cluster Initiative. The OTC is now one of seven new regional innovation networks that can call themselves future clusters. This was announced by the Federal Minister of Education and Research Anja Karliczek on 3 February 2021.
Under the coordination of the University of Rostock, the consortium of Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD, Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research WarnemündeResearch Association MV and Rostock Business as well as 13 other regional companies and start-ups convinced the jury with the quality of its innovative approach. "We are very pleased about this beautiful success that our strong network in close cooperation between research and industry can celebrate today with this award," says Professor Wolfgang Schareck, Rector of the University of Rostock. "It is paying off again that we already promoted interdisciplinary work ten years ago with the founding of the Interdisciplinary Faculty. The Future Cluster now offers us an outstanding opportunity to grow into a leading location in underwater technology," emphasises Professor Udo Kragl, Prorector for Research and Knowledge Transfer at the University of Rostock.
In the OTC Future Cluster, technological developments for the sustainable use of the oceans are integrated into the development of an innovative cluster of research, business and society. The Ocean Technology Campus, located in Rostock's fishing harbour, offers a very real platform for networking. In its innovation fields Subsea Mobility & Autonomy, Digital Mission, Ocean Lense, Sustainable Ocean Use and Ocean Open Innovation, the cluster will work on concrete research and development projects over the next three years. Some of them cover the entire value chain up to product development. This is achieved through accompanying innovation-promoting projects that extend the momentum and development from the research institutions to the marine technology companies. This will create a unique research, business and training cluster in the field of underwater technology that bundles creative potential and creates innovation-promoting structures. In this way, the OTC is to become an internationally recognised centre of innovative maritime technologies and applications in the coming years and make it clear that ecology and economy do not have to be at odds with each other.
Further information on the cluster:
https://www.inf.uni-rostock.de/mts/otc-rostock
Information on the BMBF competition "Clusters4Future":
https://www.clusters4future.de/zukunftscluster-initiative