A MANAGEMENT APPROACH FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH NETWORKS IN A KNOWLEDGE-BASED SOCIETY - CASE STUDY OF THE CLUSTER OF EXCELLENCE "INTEGRATIVE PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY FOR HIGH-WAGE COUNTRIES"

Due to globalisation, innovations in low-wage countries take place in increasingly faster cycles since several years. By this means, the pressure on high-wage countries rises to keep up their knowledge advantage within diverse branches. Because of the fact that new knowledge is established more and more among interfaces of various disciplines, different demands arise with regard to an adequate institutional framework. Thus, the nationwide initiation of so-called Clusters of Excellence in Germany can be classified as a measure which has the target to support innovation activities within knowledge intensive networks. However, highly complex and heterogeneous research networks are in need of an appropriate management approach which supports cross linking of various disciplines and increases the scientific output, but a corresponding ap-proach is not established yet. Therefore, the so-called Cross Sectional Processes in the Cluster of Excellence ‘Integrative Production Technology for High-Wage Countries’ at RWTH Aachen University, Germany, aim at creating management approaches which fit the needs of huge, heterogeneous, highly complex and dynamic research clusters. Moreover, the aim of the investigations is to design, implement and evaluate a man-agement approach which is transferable to similar clusters and networks in future in order to foster interdisciplinary innova-tion activities in networks.