RPTU starts the future of innovation with 20 million euros!

RPTU starts the future of innovation with 20 million euros!

The Rhineland-Palatinate Technical University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU) can look forward to exciting news: it is a partner in the new consortium “Southwest X – The Bridge to Innovation”, which was awarded as part of the EXIST lighthouse competition “Startup Factories”. This consortium has set itself the goal of significantly increasing technology and research-based start-ups in the region and at the same time creating sustainable innovation impulses. Loud News KL The consortium will be provided with over 20 million euros, including up to 10 million euros from federal funds, over a period of five years.

This financial support paves the way for innovative startups in Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and neighboring regions such as France and Luxembourg. Private partners and companies will complement the financing, creating a robust network for technological start-ups. The RPTU brings its extensive experience in research and technology transfer to promote start-up support.

A strong network for innovation

The RPTU becomes part of a dynamic network that includes leading institutions. The partners include WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management, the Collège des Ingénieurs, Trier University of Applied Sciences, the Saarland University of Applied Sciences, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and Max Planck Innovation GmbH. This broad collaboration is intended to create a cross-border innovation ecosystem that focuses in particular on the topics of “Sustainable Artificial Intelligence” and “Green Transformation”.

Julian Joswig, member of the Bundestag from ALLIANCE 90/THE GREENS, calls the project a signal of the region's innovative strength. Jeanne Dillschneider, his colleague from the Bundestag, also emphasizes that this funding represents an enormous boost for Saarland as a research location. It was also announced that the “The Bridge” consortium from Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland was also one of the winners of this lighthouse competition, which aims to promote new startups at the interface between science and business.

New opportunities for startups

The initiative offers students, researchers and those interested in starting a business at the RPTU new coaching offers and access to high-quality DeepTech infrastructures. The aim is to create space for sustainable technologies and responsible AI applications. This can be particularly important for rural areas, where the necessary ecosystems for entrepreneurial spirit and sustainability are often lacking. The Stifterverband's start-up radar shows that Saarland even takes second place in a nationwide comparison of university start-ups.

Through close cooperation between science, research, the private sector and start-up ecosystems, the EXIST lighthouse competition aims to increase the quality and number of knowledge-based spin-offs in Germany in the next decade. The award ceremony took place on July 10, 2025 in Berlin and was chaired by Katherina Reiche, the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy. A total of ten different concepts were honored that have the potential to significantly advance innovations in various areas, such as startup-factories.de is described.

With this initiative, the region shows that it has an outstanding talent for developing innovative and sustainable solutions in the future. Innovators and founders should take advantage of this opportunity because there is actually a lot to be achieved here.