Miscellaneous  |  07/17/2019

Rafael Laguna de la Vera has been appointed founding director of the German Agency for Disruptive Innovation

German Federal Minister of Education and Research Anja Karliczek and German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier announced the unanimous decision of the Commission for the Establishment of the German Agency for Disruptive Innovation chaired by Dietmar Harhoff: The tech pioneer, founder and innovator Rafael Laguna will be the founding director of the so-called SprinD.

Rafael Laguna de la Vera. Source: Open Xchange

As future location for the new agency the Commission recommends a well-developed urban region with a strong science orientation, e.g., the metropolitan Berlin region.


The final decision on the location is to be made in accordance with the future director. Both ministers thanked the Commission chaired by Dietmar Harhoff for their valuable entrepreneurial, scientific and political input.


SprinD aims to foster pioneering research with a wide range of application possibilities. The new German Agency for Disruptive Innovation is to promote innovations with radically new technologies and a great potential to change the market with new products, services and value chains.


More on the Commission for the Establishment of SprinD here.