MBRAUN, a major mechanical and industrial engineering company and an affiliate of Germany’s Indus Holdings AG, plans to invest almost USD$750,000 (1 billion won) in a South Korean university as part of a deal to jointly conduct solar cell-related research and development projects. MBRAUN will also donate research equipment to Sungkyunkwan University and help it build facilities for the projects. With the investment, MBRAUN and Sungkyunkwan University’s Advanced Institute of Nano-Technology (SAINT) will establish an application lab at the research center in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province.
“Korea is the birthplace of technological innovation. That’s why we decided to donate research equipment to a Korean university,” Patrick Bieger, MBRAUN’s chief executive, said in a recent interview with The Korea Economic Daily in Seoul. He said it’s the first time that MBRAUN has decided to invest in a university, which shows how important the Korean market is in terms of technological innovations.
The German company has chosen Sungkyunkwan University because of its achievements in the development of lead-free and eco-friendly solar cells.
Through this contract, MBRAUN plans to contribute to the international industry-academic exchange and the advancement of Korea's technology development by:
- Provision of advanced equipment
- Accumulation of big data related to non-lead perovskite-based energy cells and nanocarbon-based secondary batteries
- Continuous feedbacks
- Korea-Germany Workshops to encourage exchanges
- SAINT-MBRAUN Joint SNS Marketing
Bieger said Korea should increase academic-industry research collaboration as a battery innovation hub. “The need for eco-friendly batteries is growing. Research on perovskite solar cells will have a great impact on academia and companies as well as on the environment,” he said.
Securing intellectual property rights through academic-industry cooperation has been widely employed by global companies. BASF SE, a German multinational chemical company, has also established an R&D center on the Sungkyunkwan University campus in Suwon for the development of next-generation OLED materials.