VDI / VDE innovation + technology

VDI / VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH (VDI / VDE-IT)
legal form	GmbH
founding	April 1, 1978
Seat	Berlin-Charlottenburg
management	Peter Dortans, Dr. Werner Wilke
Number of employees	607
sales	53.6 million euros (2017)
Branch	research
Website	vdivde-it.de

The VDI / VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH (short: VDI / VDE-IT ) is a promoter as well as service and consulting company for various federal and state ministries , the European Commission and the Finance and Industry , there especially for Small and Medium Businesses . The focus is on social and technical challenges such as digitization , demographic change , human-technology interaction , and electromobility, Electronics, health, education and innovation policy issues.

The shareholders of the company, which was founded in 1978, are the Association of German Engineers (VDI) and the Verband der Elektrotechnik Elektronik Informationstechnik e. V. (VDE).

tasks

With around 400 employees in Berlin , Dresden , Munich and Stuttgart , the company carries out studies on innovations and technology on behalf of the company . It organizes and maintains contact and offices for public funding programs . In addition, the company organizes research funding for ministries as part of funding programs. As a project sponsor, the company is an interface between politics and administration , business and research .

As the project sponsor, the VDI / VDE-IT supports and advises federal and state ministries and the European Commission in using public funds efficiently for innovations and technology . In 2019, VDI / VDE-IT managed around 1.1 billion euros in funding for its clients.

history

1970s: Foundation and first orders from the federal government

With the advent of microelectronics , German medium-sized companies were confronted with a technological change to which companies in the United States and Japan had better adapted by the 1970s . The effects of this failure to switch to microelectronics within their products were in the form of job losses and declines in sales, for example in the watch, printing and entertainment industries. Thereupon the federal government decided in 1978 to counteract this development. Small and medium-sized enterprises should be helped with adaptation difficulties due to the rapid advances in microelectronics. For this purpose, the VDI Technology Center (VDI-TZ) was founded in Berlin on April 1, 1978 as a department of the Association of German Engineers (VDI). This company should advise on technological change in the areas of microelectronics and physical technologies, train staff and support other companies in the preparation of funding applications.

1980s: Spin-off and change in corporate structure

In 1980 the VDI-TZ took over the program "Entry into microelectronics for SMEs with structural adjustment difficulties" of the Federal Ministry of Education and Science as the project sponsor. In the following years, from 1981 onwards, the VDI-TZ managed a special program for the federal government to promote the application in microelectronics in the amount of 300 million Deutschmarks . From 1983, the focus was also on programs to promote technology-oriented start-ups.

Six years after the company was founded, the “Physical Technologies” area was spun off in 1984 and became the basis of the VDI Technology Center in Düsseldorf . The remaining part of the company operated in Berlin for the next two years as the VDI Technology Center for Information Technology . In 1986 the Verband der Elektrotechnik Elektronik Informationstechnik e. V. (VDE) as a second partner and the company was converted into VDI / VDE-Technologiezentrum Informationstechnik GmbH (VDI / VDE-IT). From 1987 the VDI / VDE-IT maintained a liaison office in China to support the German-Chinese cooperation in electronics and information technology.

1990s: International orientation and expansion in the East

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall , the VDI / VDE-IT has also dealt with the development of the East from 1989 . The focus here was on funding programs for microsystem technology and the expansion of the start-up programs to include the eastern German federal states , under which around 370 new companies were founded by 1996. From 1992 onwards, VDI / VDE-IT also implemented an innovation promotion program for the Federal Ministry of Economics in the eastern German states. In the following year, the company relocated its headquarters to Teltow in Brandenburg , seeking proximity to young, technology-oriented companies. From 1993 onwards, the consulting activities were also oriented internationally. As part of the 3rd EU research framework program , so-called EU liaison offices for research and technology, so-called Value Relay Centers, were set up at four locations throughout Germany. From 1995, VDI / VDE-IT took over the coordination of the network, later renamed the Innovation Relay Center, for northern Germany . In the following years, the company also provided advice in ten Central and Eastern European countries. From 1994 the company implemented various funding programs in East Germany on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Research and Technology. VDI / VDE-IT supported over 180 innovation programs in the eastern German states with around 75 million D-Marks from the SED - party assets . From 1997 to 2001, VDI / VDE-IT supported the establishment of over 1,000 companies with more than 5,000 jobs with the implementation of the Federal Ministry of Economics' first start-up competition .

2000s: new topics

In the course of the 2000s , the company opened offices in Munich and Dresden , expanded its focus and also dealt with the topics of renewable energies , electromobility , IT security as well as school, vocational and university education. During this period of thematic expansion, the company was renamed VDI / VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH in 2004 .

In 2006 the company headquarters was relocated again, this time to the listed Hoechst-Haus in Berlin-Charlottenburg . One focus of the company at the end of the 2000s is the promotion of electromobility. To this end, the VDI / VDE-IT organized the National Strategy Conference on Electromobility in 2008 on behalf of various federal ministries and, three years later, was involved in the development of a national development plan for electromobility and was also active in this area as a project sponsor for the Federal Environment Ministry. Another focus is the management of business networks, so-called clusters . In this area, the company supports the Federal Ministry of Economics in cluster management. To support the cluster agency of Baden-Wuerttemberg which opened VDI / VDE-IT 2014 project office in Stuttgart .

2010s: digitization and health research

From 2012, the company took on new project sponsorships for the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and has since been involved in research funding in the areas of human-technology interaction as well as IT security research, microelectronics and autonomous driving .

VDI / VDE-IT has been operating an information security management system (ISMS) in accordance with ISO standard 27001 since 2014 . The company's quality management was certified in accordance with ISO 9001 in 2016 .

Since 2015, VDI / VDE-IT has been responsible for the topic of digital change in education, science and research as part of the digital agenda for the Federal Ministry of Education . The company has been responsible for departmental research for the Federal Ministry of Health since 2017 as the project management agency . In the same year the company opened an office in Bonn .

Company structure and offices

The VDI / VDE-IT is made up of a total of ten departments and seven cross-sectional departments. The employees come from the fields of natural , engineering , social , humanities and economics .

The ten departments:

Administrative project management
education and Science
Demography, clusters, futurology
Electronics and microsystems (partly at the Dresden location)
Society and innovation
Technologies of digital change (location Munich)
Innovation and cooperation
Regional transformation processes and economic development (Stuttgart location)
Communication systems, human-technology interaction, health
Mobility of the future and Europe

Seven cross-sectional departments perform support tasks for the specialist departments:

digitalization
Information management and data processing
public relation
Strategic corporate development
HR department
Legal Department
Business administration

Since 2007, the company has maintained the Institute for Innovation and Technology (iit) with representative offices in the United States of America , Chile, for the preparation of studies, evaluations and prognoses that serve the clients for planning research funding or for organizational and product development , Argentina , Peru and France .

Client

VDI / VDE-IT clients include:

Current and completed funding programs

The project management organization VDI / VDE-IT implements numerous funding programs or parts of these programs for its clients . These include:

Human-technology interaction for demographic change (BMBF)
Communication systems and IT security (BMBF)
Electronic systems / electromobility (BMBF)
Federal-state competition "Advancement through Education: Open Universities" (BMBF)
Digital change in education, science and research (BMBF)
Digital University Teaching (BMBF)
mFund (BMVI)
Renewable Mobile (BMUB)
ZIM - Central Innovation Program for SMEs (BMWi)
Automated and networked driving (BMVI)
Departmental research by the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG)
Information and communication technology (Bavaria)
ProFIT - Program for the Promotion of Research, Innovations and Technologies (Berlin)
National Contact Point Human-Technology-Interaction in Demographic Change (BMBF) for the EU funding program Horizon 2020

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b annual report of VDI / VDE-IT (PDF, accessed: June 2020)
↑ ^a ^b company presentation (PDF, accessed: June 2020)
↑ Federal Report on Research and Innovation (accessed: July 2017)
↑ Microelectronics - a new dimension of technical change and automation, p. 5 (accessed: August 2017)
^ A radical in the industry in: Die ZEIT 15/1978 (accessed: August 2017)
↑ Can the watch industry survive? (accessed: August 2017)
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f company history on vdivde-it.de (accessed: August 2017)
↑ Bundestag printed paper no .: 08/2107 of September 19, 1978 (PDF, accessed: June 2017)
↑ Bundestag printed matter No. 13/5691, p. 2 (accessed: August 2017)
↑ ^a ^b References on vdivde-it.de (accessed: July 2017)
↑ Certifications on vdivde-it.de (accessed: June 2017)
↑ Presentation of the Bonn office on vdivde-it.de (accessed: November 2019)
↑ The company's departments at vdivde-it.de (accessed: June 2020)
↑ Orders on vdivde-it.de (accessed: July 2017)