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Germany's Forschungszulage reimburses up to 35% of eligible R&D costs for SMEs—even before a startup is profitable. We help sustainability and climate tech companies define the entire research topic and organize the team, working students, and open-source modules so the project succeeds technically and qualifies cleanly.
German companies have three distinct models for bringing university talent into R&D: working students, mandatory internships, and industry theses. Choosing the right contract—and pairing it with structured research supervision and open-source maintenance—turns student roles from a supervision burden into a lasting R&D asset.
In Germany, a mandatory university internship must prioritize learning while running full-time for three to six months. That makes it ideal for a self-contained R&D or open-source software module—when someone designs the roadmap and supervises the execution.
Working students bring real value when their work is structured as a bounded research or open-source module rather than ad-hoc backlog tickets. We scope the R&D task, recruit from our research collaboration pool, and maintain shared open-source outcomes long-term.
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