Research: Fast track to the real world

Testing ideas in reality instead of on paper

The potential of real-world laboratories is huge. The idea is that innovations can be tested directly in the real world instead of in laboratories or on paper. This enables researchers and companies to immediately recognize and adapt to the obstacles that new products or processes encounter in practice. The concept is therefore a scientific version of a development process that is popular in the start-up world: instead of tinkering endlessly with details, such companies sometimes bring half-finished ideas or designs to market in order to carry out further work based on user reactions.

The concept was praised this spring by the Expert Commission for Research and Innovation (EFI), a scientific body that advises the German government. This came with a healthy amount of fundamental criticism in the EFI's annual report, however. “Some of the basic conditions for research and innovation are no longer up to date,” said Uwe Cantner, commission chair and professor of economics at the University of Jena, at the presentation of the report. In order to change this, the scientists proposed a series of initiatives (see info box),

urging a stronger focus on real-world laboratories in particular. “This can noticeably shorten the long path innovations often take to commercialization,” the report states. As technologies revolutionize more and more current processes and technical progress continues to accelerate, early findings from everyday life will be all the more significant. In areas such as autonomous driving, alternative mobility concepts, new energy systems and artificial intelligence, real-world laboratories make it easier to test possible future scenarios today.

The forthcoming Real-World Laboratory Act could clarify how such experimentation clauses are incorporated into the respective specialist regulations. The EFI Commission advocates the broadest possible exemptions, meaning they should not refer to a specific real-world laboratory project. Otherwise they will be more likely to become obsolete after a relatively short time, as Parodi points out. His network, on the other hand, is calling for a more cautious introduction – and clear time limits of four to five years. According to Parodi, the legal canon as a whole needs to be examined in order to enable and ensure sustainability. “We have to think very carefully about what’s worth protecting in the long term and what isn’t. A major social discourse is needed on this subject.”

Bureaucratic and organizational hurdles

Also under discussion is the question of how real-world laboratories can be supported right from the start. By definition, they have to serve numerous disciplines and require a wide variety of skills. This includes everything from scientific expertise and legal advice on the experimentation clauses to public relations work involving affected companies and citizens. “Real-world laboratory work is a complex matter that requires a lot of experience and sensitivity. You have to speak different languages at the same time,” says Parodi. None of this happens automatically. Different project partners have different aims and interests, and participating companies may have different priorities than the scientists involved. Agreeing on common goals is “not at all a trivial matter,” Parodi continues. “And a real-world laboratory can't come to life and bear fruit until that happens.”

One possible approach to circumventing at least the organizational hurdles at hand is to have a central point of contact. This helps projects and organizations obtain information, network with one another and quickly find the people they need to talk to. In North Rhine-Westphalia, Digi-Sandbox.NRW has been serving in this role since the end of 2021. It now comprises over 80 real-world laboratories between East Westphalia and the Belgian border.

In the future, a portal of this kind is to be created for all of Germany. A “one-stop shop” is planned which, according to the BMWK, will be set up “in a lean manner with minimal bureaucracy”. According to the original schedule, it was supposed to launch this year, but the BMWK has since announced that the work on building the portal will now commence in the late fall of 2024. Pilot operations could then start in spring 2025 and gather experience for three to four years.

If this exchange across disciplines is successful, great leaps could be made in comparatively short periods of time. The real-world laboratory for bidirectional charging at Frankfurt Airport, for example, has set itself an ambitious timetable. In its first twelve months (starting from the beginning of 2024), the main focus will be on analyzing the current situation and preparing the technical planning.

But it won't stop there. The data obtained in the process will enable the “development of practical solutions as opposed to purely theoretical or simulation-based approaches,” says Sebastian Herold, professor of energy management at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences. In the following three years, up to 90 stations for bidirectional charging are to be built at the airport.

Manuel Heckel is a freelance business journalist from Cologne.