Knowledge transfer in the building trade

"Knowledge transfer in the building trade" is the name of a joint research project being conducted by seven partners from the fields of research, industry and regulatory framework to speed up the practical use of new innovative building materials. The project, supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), is part of the BMBF materials research programme and thus of the Federal government's new high-tech strategy. The overriding aim is to actively promote innovative developments on future-oriented markets in Germany. The building industry is one of these.

The partners are working together on the active utilisation of the research results obtained in the context of the announced BMBF promotion schemes "NanoTecture - Nanotechnology in the building trade" and "HighTechMatBau - New materials for urban infrastructures". The purpose of the above-mentioned supportive measures is to promote projects aimed at developing new, innovative materials and substances for practical building applications.

Film about HighTechMatBau (in German)

Results are already available from the completed NanoTecture programme. As the HighTechMatBau research projects are running concurrently with the transfer project, the intention is for the consortium to play an advisory role. This will make it possible to provide the companies, research institutes and universities with support right from the start of their work in the form of the joint preparation of appropriate distribution and the planning of practical implementation of the research results.

An important task is to process and distribute the research results in a manner appropriate to the various target groups in the building trade value chain, including construction material producers, consulting engineers, architects and building companies. The available results of the projects will first be recorded and then proposed for one of the following utilisation options on the basis of their information content and degree of maturity (e.g. fundamental research or application-related research):

The extensive networks of the seven project partners will act as multipliers. The following are some of the planned technology transfer channels according to utilisation option:

• Discussions and consultations in committees within the scope of the network to establish the applicability of the research results from the above-mentioned promotion schemes in practice.
• Organisation of events to present the research results. A public conference is planned for this purpose in 2018 for example.
• Preparation and distribution of information and instruction materials on the various topics, also suitable for use by small and medium-sized enterprises (SME).

The BMBF is following the commendable course of offering comprehensive support for the development of innovative technologies. The focus of attention is no longer just on material and technology research activities but now also includes active support for the implementation of technology transfer in practice.

In future, information on the new technologies and forthcoming events will be available on the website www.hightechmatbau.de (only German website available).