Leibniz Health Technologies Ein Forschungsverbund der Leibniz Gemeinschaft

The Research Alliance

LEIBNIZ HEALTH TECHNOLOGIES

Leibniz Health Technologies Research Alliance - Translation as a Guiding Principle

Leibniz Health Technologies Research Alliance

The Leibniz Research Alliance Health Technologies unites the scientific excellence of its 19 member institutes and 4 spin-off companies to develop innovative medical technologies and accelerate their translation into clinical practice. The alliance aims to provide market-ready products and procedures for the diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of diseases—delivering clear societal value. Working together, the partners pursue a common mission: to improve patient care. Through an interdisciplinary approach, the alliance integrates prevention, diagnostics, therapy, and monitoring to enhance quality of life.

The research alliance brings together expertise from diverse scientific fields—including photonics and medicine, microelectronics, materials research, economics, and applied mathematics. This comprehensive foundation enables the development of cutting-edge health technologies that are advanced to market readiness in close cooperation with industry, hospitals, insurers, and policymakers along a seamless innovation pipeline. In parallel, the alliance studies the social and economic impacts of new medical technologies to maximize user benefit and promote broad public acceptance.

Key Focus Areas of the New Funding Period Starting April 2025

Translation as a Guiding Principle

  • Establishment of a permanent “Translation” working group
  • Launch of a new funding program for advanced technologies
  • Improved utilization of shared Leibniz infrastructures, such as the Leibniz Center for Photonics in Infection Research (Jena), the Joint Lab First in Translation (Aachen), and the Competence Center for Diabetes (Karlsburg)

Enhanced Interdisciplinary Research

  • Integration of the five core competence areas—Imaging Technologies, Biomarkers, Point-of-Care Technologies, Plasma Medicine, and Bioactive Materials—in collaborative projects, such as spatial analysis of biomarkers and immune cells for novel diagnostics in infectious diseases

Clinical Validation

  • Testing and refinement of new technologies in application-oriented laboratory and clinical settings

Early-Career Support

  • Workshops, training, and mentoring programs for young researchers, with a strong emphasis on translation and technology transfer

Market Analysis and Accompanying Research

  • Economic and regulatory assessment of emerging technologies from the outset

Network Expansion

  • Integration of new partners such as the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology and the Leibniz Institute for Composite Materials to further strengthen the interdisciplinary approach

Challenge

Demographic changes, a Western lifestyle, and increasing globalization confront health systems with increasing and changing needs in terms of services. An increase in age and lifestyle-related diseases can be expected. Global commerce and tourism, as well as migration tendencies, also facilitate the fast spread of infections, pathogens, and resistance genes. This requires a new care concept in which prevention, diagnostics, treatment, and aftercare converge and individual treatment plans gain importance.

Vision

Leibniz Health Technologies will sustainably accelerate the translation of research results to marketable products via the long-term collaboration of its partners to improve the medical care of patients and thus increase the quality of human life. Parallel to excellent application-oriented fundamental research in the life sciences and medicine, the economic, social, and ethical consequences of new medical technologies will be researched in a multidisciplinary process.

Strategy

The Leibniz research alliance facilitates the targeted cross-disciplinary collaboration of institutes from different sections of the Leibniz Association with each other and with external partners such as hospitals and companies to advance the topic of health technologies along the innovation chain from fundamental research to the marketing of solutions and methods via industrial partners. At the same time, this accompanying research will help recognize possible risks and conflicts early on in the process and allow required corrections to the research agenda to be made.

Networking

To actively promote interdisciplinary networking between the members of Leibniz Health Technologies, the Leibniz Research Alliance offers three internal funding instruments:

  • Short Term Scientific Mission (STSM)
    This funding instrument enables young scientists to spend a limited period of time researching at one of the 16 Leibniz institutes or associated partners. During an STSM, new methods can be learned in cooperation with specialists and scientific work can be carried out that is not possible at one's own institution.
  • Conference Participation Initiative (CPI)
    This funding instrument supports the participation of young scientists in leading conferences (or other scientific events) in order to promote networking with external medical technology researchers as well as with stakeholders in the health care system.
  • Funding for Feasibility Studies (FFS)
    In order to promote the development of innovative health technology approaches and to critically evaluate the transfer potential of novel technologies, Leibniz Health Technologies provides start-up funding for feasibility studies within the network. The findings from these studies are to be incorporated into collaborative projects that build on them.

All three funding instruments pursue the goal of strengthening the exchange between the members of Leibniz Health Technologies, enabling efficient networking with external actors in the health sector and rapidly transferring innovative research approaches into translation-oriented collaborative projects.