Prof. Hans-Jörg Bullinger
President, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft

Dr. Hans-Jörg Bullinger was born in Stuttgart (Germany) on April 13th 1944. He began his career working as a manufacturer for the Daimler-Benz company in Stuttgart, after which he read a degree at the University of Stuttgart, graduating with a Master's degree and Ph.D. in Manufacturing.

Being in charge of the Stuttgarter Fraunhofer-Institute of Production Technology and Automation, Dr. Bullinger was responsible for many applied research projects in the field of design and manufacturing, with the goal being to increase the productivity of computer based systems. These projects were carried out together with well known German companies, such as Robert Bosch, Siemens, VW, Daimler Benz and others. Much of his experience was gained working on several projects which took place abroad, he was often invited to lectures in the United States, Japan, Korea, China, India, Australia and South America. Hence his rich knowledge regarding the international situation of applied informatics.

After two years of lecturing at the University of Hagen, Dr. Bullinger was asked to become a full-time lecturer at the University of Stuttgart. Besides his role as chairman of the University, Dr. Bullinger is also the head of the Institute for Human Factors and Technology Management (IAT) and the Fraunhofer-Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO). The institutes are renowned for the carrying out of projects with both German and foreign countries. Since October 2002 he is President of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Corporate Management and Research.

In 1978, Dr. Bullinger received the Kienzle-Medal as an award from the University Group of Manufacturing. In 1982 the gold Ring-of-Honour was awarded by the German Society of Engineers (VDI). In 1986 he received the Distinguished Foreign Collegue award from the Human Factor Society. In 1991 he became an honorary Doctor at the University of Novi Sad and in the same year an honorary Professor at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei. He has since 1993 been a member of the World Academy of Productivity Science and in 1994 became an elected honorary member of the Rumanian Society of Mechanical Engineers. In 1995 he received the Arthur Burckhardt Award, in 1998 the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and in 2003 the Officer´s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2004 he became an honorary Doctor at the University of Timisoara.

During these years, Dr. Bullinger has written in excess of 1.000 articles and books regarding industrial engineering.

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Innovation Network Management as the Driving Force for the Future

Innovation has been widely recognised as the key driver of economic growth. However, in the knowledge-driven economy the nature of innovation is changing. Both technologies and innovations are becoming more complex as the knowledge content has increased. Due to the amount of different knowledge domains individual players are not able anymore to develop all the competencies necessary to create innovation in the knowledge-driven economy. Among the common characteristics of successful innovators competence orientation plays a major role with regard to the knowledge driven economy. Successful innovators therefore join to form innovation networks that allow them to flexibly source competencies and offer innovations that are complete solutions and not just products. The traditional linear model from research and development as basis of innovations is thus shifting to a model with a wide network of sources and partners integrating complementary competencies. By doing so they reduce their exposure to the seven sins of the innovation process in which a company can be trapped in. Managing innovation in such a network poses new challenges for companies as they need to adapt there way of working and develop 'networking' competencies.