Felix Kurz

Felix Kurz is a Doctoral Researcher at the Technical University of Munich. He works at the intersection of innovation policy, economics, and data science. His research investigates how public institutions shape innovation ecosystems and steer technology development to address grand societal challenges. He combines policy analysis, innovation economics, and quantitative methods to examine how state actors, universities, and firms co-shape the emergence, evolution, and governance of innovation ecosystems, technology hubs, and regional clusters.

His fellowship project asks how Munich can understand its innovation ecosystem today to support tomorrow's transitions. To answer this, the project builds an evidence-based diagnostic for stage-appropriate governance. The developmental stage of an innovation ecosystem is detectable through indicators like patenting dynamics, venture capital flows, scientific knowledge outputs, and start-up formation. Reading these patterns in a structured way guides public actors toward governance choices that match the ecosystem's actual needs. The project builds on conceptual work within the TransforM Cluster of Excellence. It seeks to show how lifecycle-based diagnostics can improve ecosystem governance. With this, governance goes beyond one-size-fits-all interventions toward stage-sensitive, responsible policies that address both chances and risks for the munich ecosystem.