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Cooperation with business and industry

We use different channels to transfer our knowledge and expertise from research to business and industry. In doing so, we support partner companies by jointly developing customised solutions for specific issues.

Student projects

We offer business and industry partners the opportunity to tender projects for semester, bachelor and master theses. Together we define the scope of the project and take over the supervision and evaluation of the work. Of course, the participating company is welcome to get actively involved. This offers the opportunity to come into contact with potential future employees.

Preliminary studies

We support business and industry partners in clarifying the feasibility of project ideas. In doing so, we contribute our competences and point out innovative solutions.

Research projects

In research projects with partners from business and industry, we develop solutions to concrete questions of application-oriented research. In order to ensure the transfer of knowledge and technology to the participating company, we usually carry out such projects in close cooperation with employees of the partner company. 

Funding

In addition to direct financing by the industrial partner, application-oriented research projects can also be supported with various subsidies. Depending on the project, cantonal, national and international institutions offer funding assistance.

Selected projects

kennwerte.ch: Web application for estimating construction costs

An innovative solution for the estimation of characteristic values for the construction and real estate industry for the start-up company ‘kennwerte ag’.

to kennwerte.ch: Web application for estimating construction costs

Optimizing hydro power plant maintenance planning

The School of Engineering FHNW has developed a method to support operators of AXPO hydro power plants.

to Optimizing hydro power plant maintenance planning

Enhancing Third Party Patent Monitoring with Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing

Application of state-of-the-art NLP models increases efficiency of third party patent monitoring in the nutrition and bioscience industry.

to Enhancing Third Party Patent Monitoring with Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing

Other realised projects with the industry

  • Prediction of real estate prices (construction costs, insurance prices, offer prices, rental prices, etc.) 
  • Recommender systems (for job placement solutions, auction platforms, investment instruments, etc.) 
  • Chatbots for various industries
  • Automatic processing of medical documents (e.g. side effects of medication)
  • Predictive logistics management (for seasonally fluctuating business areas)
  • Algorithms for image reconstruction in astrophysics and image segmentation in neuroscience
  • Development of a data processing pipeline spanning several European supercomputing facilities
  • Prediction of customer churn to stabilise business performance
  • Predictive modelling to identify customer potential for cross-selling
  • Optimisation of industrial production planning