Saarland University, founded in 1948 with a French-German-DNA, 17,000 students and a faculty of 4,600, has repeatedly proven its research strength in its focus areas Europe, Computer Science and Nano BioMed. The University is the nucleus for important transformation for Saarland, which has historically been focused on coal & steel. Since the early nineties, a robust multi-disciplinary foundation has been laid, and today the University is ranked as one of the best entrepreneurship universities in Germany. As proof of this entrepreneurial, pioneering spirit, Saarland University was the first entrepreneurial University in Germany with a start-up center, ranked #2 in Gemany and has shown strongest improvement.
With an eye on economic and social transforming needs, Saarland University has created “Triathlon” – a fully integrated ecosystem for entrepreneurship and technology transfer. Triathlon captures the entire entrepreneurial journey, including structuring and developing of concepts, business plans, products and team development. It encompasses broad support of start-ups and technology transfer from initiation, foundation to implementation and scale-up. It provides sincnificant resources, two starter centers, a connected Science Park (9000 sqm, office/laboratory) and an additional Innovation Center (1800 sqm) is operational Q4/23.
The University is nucleus of Saarlands Science and Technology Campus -creating an unique innovation-plattform in Germany - including first class research institutes such as e.g. German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Center for IT Security (CISPA), Leibnitz Institute for New Materials (INM), Max Planck Research Institutes (Informatics & Software Systems), Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering (IBMT), Research Center for Material Engineering (MECS).

Prof. Dr. Manfred Schmitt
President Saarland University
University Board,  Saarland University



Dr. Roland Rolles
Vice-President for Administration and Finance
University Board,  Saarland University



Prof. Dr. Annemarie Matusche-Beckmann
Vice-President for Social Responsibility and Sustainability
University Board,  Saarland University



Prof. Dr. Cornelius König
Vice-President for Internationalization and European Relations
University Board,  Saarland University



Prof. Dr. Sven Heidenreich
Chair of Technology und Innovation Management
Department of Economics,  Saarland University



Ralf Zastrau
Director Entrepreneurship/Head of Triathlon
Affiliated to University Board/Management Board of Triathlon ,  Triathlon (Saarland University)



Jens Krück
Managing Director Triathlon
Management Board of Triathlon,  Triathlon (Saarland University)



Michael Jung
Managing Director Triathlon
Management Board of Triathlon,  Triathlon (Saarland University)

We are proud and happy, that over so many years we received such a continuous and essential support by our Saarland government from different departments and of a lot of political influencers and corporate partners. They challenged us and gave us the trust and financial support to further develop our comprehensive strategy for our integrated ecosystem for entrepreneurship, innovation and transfer. The same applies to a lot of regional institutions such as the chamber of commerce, Saaris, Fitt and renowed institutes such as Max-Planck Innovation GmbH, our JV-Partner for the incubation programme and many others such as ZeMA (Center for Mechatronics and Automation Technology), August Wilhelm Scheer Institut, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Steinbeis Research Center Material Engineering Center Saarland (MECS) and Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering (IBMT), to name only some of them.