Whether good ideas, crazy ideas, big visions or small matters of the heart - they all need a home and people who believe in them. From October 1, the online platform "HerZIdee" under the domain herzidee.zittau2025.de will offer all inventors and creators a virtual roof over their heads.

The platform is the result of a collaboration between the Saxony5 project team at Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences (HSZG) and the Zittau 2025 Capital of Culture Office. The platform is intended to be a tool for collecting people's ideas for their home and their region and making them visible. It will be a showcase of ideas. Citizens should inspire each other, form networks and find supporters for the implementation of their ideas.

"The university is bringing itself and its members into the discussion. We want to offer the city and the villages more than before, which is why we also want to help discuss and implement ideas relating to science - on both a very small and a very large scale.  Think along - join in."

Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Tobias Zschunke, Vice-Rector Research at the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences

For the process surrounding Zittau's Capital of Culture application together with the three-country region, the platform will promote the further process of active citizen participation as a central database of ideas - even beyond the city limits. "From the very beginning, our bid has been characterized as a tri-national project for the future, shaped together with and by the citizens," says Thomas Zenker, Mayor of Zittau. "The new platform will ensure that no idea can get lost in the future, no matter how small, ambitious or daring it may seem at first. I am very grateful to our university and Saxony5 for their commitment."

With this offer, the HSZG underlines its role as a driver of sustainable growth and social interaction in the region. Uncomplicated and accessible to many people. Every good idea can and will help to positively promote development in the three-country region - with or without a successful application. The submissions will show where the needs and interests of the population lie.

The creation of HerZIdee was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Joint Science Conference as part of the "Innovative University" funding initiative. Every day, new ideas, new knowledge and new technologies are created in the laboratories, workshops and offices of universities. The Saxon universities of applied sciences (HAW) in Dresden, Leipzig, Mittweida, Zittau/Görlitz and Zwickau have joined forces to form the Saxony5 transfer network to ensure that this know-how reaches a wider target group even faster than before.