For companies
Your brief. An international team. Nine months.
An international team of master students works on your challenge for a full academic year, from field research to a tested prototype.
Research, prototypes, people, network
Four things you take home after one academic year with a SUGAR team.
Field research
Students interview and test your target users, often in regions hard for you to reach. You receive all findings compactly.
Global innovation projects
Insights from an international team, a final prototype or proof of concept, and optional training for your employees.
Talent scouting
Master students with nine months of design thinking practice. Many continue the project at the partner or found a startup.
The largest corporate-academic community
Global players, hidden champions, SMEs and NGOs. Partners meet each other at SUGAR and SUGAR+ events.
What the team delivers in June
A final prototype or proof of concept, plus documentation of the whole design process: user research, evaluations, benchmarks and specifications.
Your part
You set the problem statement and meet your team at four milestones. Teams get a real budget for prototypes from you.
- OctMeet your team at the start of the year.
- DecFirst milestone: your team presents its findings.
- MarSecond milestone: you see tested prototypes.
- JunYou receive the final prototype or proof of concept.
Christine Thong explains the partner's role in a short video. Watch the videos
Global players, hidden champions, NGOs
The organisations behind the projects in our archive.
- SAP
- Intel Ireland
- Volvo Construction Equipment
- Takeda
- Nestlé
- Merck
- Saint-Gobain
- Valeo
- Yanmar
- Haufe-Lexware
- GIZ
- PAPREC
- All Nippon Airways
- Attract
- AUDI
- Badisches Landesmuseum
- BMW Group
- BVG
- Carvajal
- CEiiA
- Chair Supply Chain of the Future
- CRIF
- Deep Blue Foundation
- Diakonie Baden
- E3 Project TCD
- EADS
- Edenred
- Enable Ireland
- Fazenda Cubo
- FoodCloud
- GEA
- Generali
- Georg Fischer
- Harvia
- Helvetia
- HUK-Coburg
- IMA
- iSoftStone
- Italian Institute of Technology
- Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
- LBBW
- Leonard (VINCI)
- Lipor
- Medicas GmbH
- Medicover Stomatologia
- NKC Nakanishi Metal Works
- Omnicell
- Osaka Gas Chemicals
- OSRAM
- Panasonic
- Plan International
- Plansee Group
- Poggipolini
- Pontificia Universidad Javeriana
- Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Cali
- Porsche
- PostFinance
- Renault
- Rovio Entertainment
- Sanofi Genzyme Italy
- SBB
- SEW Eurodrive
- SONAE MC
- SUMMIT
- Tarkett
- Trinity Centre for Practice and Healthcare Innovation
- Trinity Teaching and Learning
- Triwool
- UCB
- UPM
- VNTR
- ZEISS / ZKM
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15 partners came back for another brief. All partners (74) →
Projects that became startups
Some teams kept going after the Expo and founded a company from their prototype.
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What partners say
Innovation managers and executives on what the collaboration brought them.
It’s always very inspirational to work with students. They have a fresh mind and they bring new ideas.
The students bring fresh crazy ideas and out off the box thinking to our traditional insurance culture.
The research can be valuable for many parts of the business. Students give us an outside view with new insights.
The project has uncovered an interesting potential new business field for GF piping Systems.
Bring a brief for the next cohort
Tell us about your challenge. We match it with a student team for the cohort starting in October.
Your contactProf. Dr. Falk UebernickelCo-chair of the network
Write to us contact@sugar-network.orgSee projects of other partners