Training and education as well as research and development are the foundation pillars of the University and the research undertaken results in marketable products and services for local projects and companies.

The Technology Transfer Office arranges the necessary contacts between local companies and the University.
These contacts have advantages for both parties: numbers show that the region’s smaller and medium-sized companies in particular, are becoming increasingly aware of the University’s knowledge-transfer schemes aimed at solving technological, organizational or management issues.

Student project workers enhance staff capacity enabling companies to actualize projects which in their everyday functioning they would not have the time or staff available for.
The students benefit from their experiences in developing contacts and they also gain hands-on experience. Whereas companies are conversant with practice-generated problems, the University is able to guarantee scientific rigour and so solutions are developed together.

These types of joint ventures are often financed by special federal promotion programmes.

Many projects do not just demand a combined effort between the University and companies but also a University inter-departmental cooperation.
This need has led to the University setting up specific research points of focus.  These points are oriented to current as well as long-term projects and vary over time.

The University also liaises with other universities to exchange and share knowledge.

As well as education and training, Gelsenkirchen University of Applied Sciences carries out active research contemporaneous with the newest developments in technology and science.

Many of the University’s institutes work together and combine related research findings. The implementation of research results is supported by companies and institutes affiliated with the University.

Gelsenkirchen University of Applied Sciences is a member of NRW Innovation Alliance which was founded at the beginning of 2007. The Alliance acts as a collaboratively organized network of NRW universities whose aim is to support their commercial partners in regionally-based activities.