The project examines how infrastructures as socio-technical systems secure existing value creation, tap into new sources through digital and ecological transformation, and themselves generate value. The focus is on traditional production and service sectors and their infrastructural foundations. Challenges such as climate change, cybersecurity, geopolitical tensions, and skills shortages are analyzed as risks and opportunities. The aim is to understand the interaction between market and public welfare interests and to derive recommendations for action for more resilient, sustainable value creation – always in the context of critical infrastructures.

In the automotive, IT/semiconductor and smart infrastructure sectors in particular, supply bottlenecks, natural disasters, political instability or pandemics can lead to the complete collapse of value creation networks. Until now, there has been a lack of ability to quickly and flexibly deploy critical skills that are needed at short notice in crisis situations. For example, if maritime transport is disrupted, competences are needed to change transport routes, or expertise to negotiate emergency contracts. Together with partners from the sectors, the project is developing solutions on how to pool competences in a network with other actors.

ResiKomp aims to increase the resilience of value networks by procuring the necessary competences through digital competence pooling. Competence pools are digital points of contact for companies to identify critical competences in specific sectors, simulate crisis scenarios and their potential impact using, for example, AI algorithms, and develop mechanisms and specific actions to provide and procure the necessary competences in response to potential disruptions. Platform- or community-based approaches will enable companies to access critical competences across their network in crisis situations. This includes mechanisms to ensure a balance between trust and competition, hidden competence monopolies and risk mitigation mechanisms.

The project idea is characterized by the cross-network bundling of several necessary pillars for the provision and procurement of competences in crisis situations. These pillars provide tools for identifying, simulating and exchanging critical competences. In the future, a community of practice, leveling options for networks and operator concepts for digital competence pools will emerge. 

IPCEI-CIS stands for Important Projectsof Common European Interest - Next Generation Cloud Infrastructure andServices. The EU funding program aims to create a powerful and sustainablemulti-provider cloud edge continuum for Europe. Kicks for Edge contributes tothe identification of requirements for industrial applications inthe area of edgeand cloud technologies in small and medium-sized enterprises in Germany and tothe derivation of new technological developments.

The research project"Kicks4Edge" aims to empower SMEs to digitalize their production andprocesses using cloud-edge technologies. To achieve this, the project promotesthe interoperability of heterogeneous production and control systems throughconnectivity and interfaces, as well as through new software and serviceofferings for open industrial edge systems and digital business models.Additionally, an open "Industrial Edge Ecosystem" is to be fosteredand maintained.

Incollaboration with the Institute for Factory Automation and Production Systems (FAPS), qualitative interviews are being conducted withcompanies. Based on these interviews, an "Edge Playbook" will bedeveloped as part of the project. This playbook is intended to serve as aguideline for the use of edge devices in various application scenarios, helpingusers identify, develop, and implement their own use cases.

SHAPE zielt darauf ab, skalierbare Ansätze zur Etablierung von Dienstleistungsökosystemen für KMU,
öffentliche Einrichtungen und andere Akteure zu entwickeln. Dies beinhaltet die iterative und
datenbasierte Entwicklung von Dienstleistungsinnovationen, die flexible Ressourcenallokation, die
Anpassung der Akteursbeziehungen und die digitale Transformation dieser Ökosysteme. Durch den
Aufbau einer Hub-Struktur und die Einbindung von Multiplikatoren sollen diese Ansätze digital
zugänglich gemacht und bei der Umsetzung unterstützt werden.
Das Projekt SHAPE erforscht Mechanismen zur dynamischen Ressourcenallokation und agilen
Rekombination von Akteursbeziehungen, um einen allgemeinen Ansatz zu entwickeln, der in
verschiedenen Domänen anwendbar ist. Durch die Automatisierung der Auswahl und Kombination von
Kompetenzen und Ressourcen soll eine skalierbare Methodik für Dienstleistungsinnovationen in
Ökosystemen entwickelt werden, die kundenorientiert und auf verschiedene Branchen anwendbar ist.

The research project SHAPE aspires to foster data-driven service innovations, which offer substantial benefits for the transformation and resilience of the German economy. Customer-specific, data-driven services increasingly require the cooperation of several actors, who have the required know-how, methodological expertise and resources. As a result, value co-creation is increasingly taking place in ecosystems. Hence, during the project period, the SHAPE hub is to be developed as a vehicle to orchestrate actors and resources and provide them with a set of methods that they can use for data-driven service innovations in ecosystems. The aim is to develop scalable approaches for establishing service ecosystems for SMEs, public institutions and other stakeholders.

The research project investigates how theresilience of municipalities can be improved by orchestrating citizen-driveninnovation. Through the transdisciplinary involvement of civil society, municipalities can benefit from innovation impulses or hand over parts of theinnovation process to civil society to be more agile in responding to crisesand challenges, while at the same time enabling civil society to participatemore by strengthening its own capacities. The aim is therefore to explore howan open digital innovation platform for municipalities should be designed sothat innovators from civil society can organize themselves there at a lowthreshold to jointly develop solutions in crisis situations (possibly incooperation with the municipality). As the problem areas of socio-environmentalchallenges in the context of sustainability (e.g. mobility, climate change,food supply, local recreation, housing, or education) in urban contexts tend torequire a regional level in the sense of subsidiarity, another focus of theproject is the interweaving of urban and rural areas as socially andfunctionally complementary spaces for the common good. In the design andprovision of such a platform, the project also considers issues of dataprotection and the provision of such a platform, e.g. as a public service.Through the permanent and sustainable establishment of a digital platform fornetworking civil society actors in urban-rural constellations, the project aimsto support municipalities in orchestrating citizen-driven innovations and tostrengthen the resilience of a municipality's society and its spatial interdependencies.