DIH UM

Overview

​​​​Digital Innovation Hub at University of Maribor is a regional non-profit network hub of research, industry and business support organizations, utilizing state of the art infrastructure, in order to bring the digital revolution in Slovenia by offering cutting-edge digital technology innovations and services to the manufacturing industry. It also acts as a one-stop shop for East Cohesion Region of Slovenia, directing industry player towards partners who can help them during the digital transformation process.

The mission of DIH UM is to bridge the gap between the digitalization needs in the industries and the viable solutions. DIH UM’s vision is to create a collaborative community focused on digital technologies and new business models that can improve the competitiveness of companies.

DIH UM is oriented towards industrial sectors, which are prioritized in the Slovenia’s Smart Specialisation Strategy (S4). Priority area Healthy working and living environment relates to areas of application where systemic solutions should be developed based on R&D investments and intensive collaboration between stakeholders, especially companies and knowledge institutions. One of the main goals of DIH UM is to use available mechanisms, such as SRIPs, clusters, value chains etc. as a vehicle to identify future challenges and determine appropriate solutions to accelerate innovation and digital transformation. In the case of SMEs - to support them at scale-up activities to develop and implement digital skills. Experiences show that facilitating and enabling SMEs to access research facilities (e.g. HPC) removes various barriers for them (e.g. costs, lack of personnel, learning curve, lean optimization of business model) and greatly improves the likelihood of them becoming world leaders. On the other hand, for DIH UM’s technology and knowledge providers, such partnerships stimulate long-term R&D collaborations and create solid basis for strong and sustainable links between science and industry.

The largest ongoing investment is a 20 million project HPC-RIVR. UM has secured 16 million EU funding (+4 million national funding) to build a supercomputer center in Maribor to boost national high-performance computing capacities for research, innovation and business. The project will ensure integration with existing infrastructures, such as the Slovenian State Cloud. HPC-RIVR is a reference project of the Digital Slovenia 2020 (Information Society Development Strategy to 2020).

The DIH UM is bringing together skilled workforce, researchers, policy, network, knowledge, research findings and the industry. For this reason, various activities aimed at integrating knowledge and R&D with the industry are being implemented in order to initiate concrete projects contributing to new jobs and new products with high added value. Because of the vast implementation scope and focused scientific excellence - DIH UM partners immerse in many local, regional and global value chains, e.g. varying from global automotive value chains to regional health-care value chains and local agrofood value chain.

The services that Digital Innovation Hub is offering to regional business are divided in three main pillars:

Produce and share knowledge:

Skills and education (DIH UM organizes workshops, courses in the field of digitalization and also provides instant access to its available and extensive R&D infrastructure for educational purpose)
Financing innovation (DIH UM provides expert help to companies on identification of funding opportunities, consultancy for the application for local and EU grants, consultancy for the application for private investments).
Business support and consultancy (DIH UM offers expert assistance in assessment of business ideas; feasibility studies and offers assistance in preparing business plans. Furthermore, we offer advice on technology transfer, intellectual property protection and other related issues)
Search for international partners (DIH UM provides support to organizations seeking to sell or install new technologies for partners in international research, technology and innovation projects)

Co-develop, test, and launch new products and services

Strategic research and development projects and contract research (DIH UM foster the establishment of successful partnerships for the joint implementation of R&D projects)
Experimentation / Prototyping (DIH UM provides technical support on company’s scale-up and also provides instant access to its available and extensive R&D infrastructure)
Testing phase (DIH UM provides product demonstration for companies)

Nourishing the digital innovation ecosystem

Community building (DIH will strengthen its community with time through different formal networks, such as EEN, KTT, DTC, DEMOLA, VZHODNA.SI, etc.)
Strategy development (DIH UM will assist local, regional and national government in content preparation of strategies and policies in the field of digitalization; furthermore it will assist companies in development and implementation of digitalization strategies)

The coordinator of the DIH:UM is University of Maribor (UM) - the second largest university in Slovenia and the largest knowledge provider in East Slovenia cohesion region with approximately 13,000 students and 17 faculties offering a full specter of natural and social study programmes. UM is very entrepreneurially oriented and thus has strong partnerships established with businesses, governmental and non-governmental organizations and other institutions in order to initiate concrete projects contributing to new jobs and new products with high added value; to address key societal issues; and to promote sustainable development and contribute to the public good. Digital technologies.