The development of new treatments for widespread diseases requires functional collaboration networks—from the research lab to the patient’s bedside. This is the focus of “translational medicine,” an approach that encompasses all stages of medical research: from basic research to the development of new drugs and their application in practice.

A key factor for success is collaboration across different organizations—including universities, research institutes, clinics, and companies—even when these organizations pursue differing goals. Regular cooperation strengthens existing networks and fosters new partnerships.

In the T-North project, quantitative network analyses and qualitative case studies are used to examine how translational processes in biomedical research occur across organizations—both within and beyond individual organizations—and how they can be made more effective. The project focuses on the university locations Hamburg, Hanover, and Kiel, which differ in their integration into networks of natural science and medical research and serve as ideal comparative cases. The goal of the T-North project is to identify the organizational conditions under which translational processes succeed particularly well and to derive practical insights from these findings.