14. May 2025

Service for Science: Start-up for the Research Community Service for Science: Start-up for the Research Community

TILLER ALPHA GmbH supports large research facilities with AI

Dr. Katharina C. Cramer, Nicolas Rüffin, and Dr. Kristofer Rolf Söderström have successfully made the transition from researchers to entrepreneurs and founded the start-up TILLER ALPHA GmbH in early 2025. “It’s important to us to communicate this change of roles openly,” emphasizes Katharina. Their clients, like themselves, come from the scientific community: TILLER ALPHA provides data-driven and AI-supported analyses for research infrastructures. Katharina also explored this topic in her research at the Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies (CASSIS) at the University of Bonn. In this interview, she explains their business idea, the start-up journey, and the support they received from the Transfer Center enaCom.

What is your business idea?

In close collaboration with research infrastructures and core facilities, we develop analyses to better understand the dynamics of user communities, usage patterns of instruments, and cooperation networks. Research infrastructures and core facilities are institutions that provide complex instruments for science, such as light sources, lasers, particle accelerators, or telescopes. These are critical infrastructures of our modern society. In times of political uncertainty and tight funding, they must operate efficiently, resiliently, and sustainably, and be at the heart of strong, excellent user communities. With our expertise, we make their data tangible and provide actionable knowledge for strategic decisions.

What challenges do you address?

We process data that is already being collected, such as...

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Katharina is a political scientist and historian who has spent many years researching research infrastructures. Nicolas has a background in business psychology and science studies, with expertise in data protection, organizational, and network research. Both were and continue to be affiliated with the Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies (CASSIS) at the University of Bonn. Kristofer is an economist and data analyst at Lund University in Sweden.

START-UP COUNSELLING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BONN. The Transfer Centre enaCom at the University of Bonn is the right place for you, whether you have a specific start-up idea or are completely new to the topic of start-ups and entrepreneurship. We support students as well as academics, employees and alumni of the university.

For more Information on Core Facilities visit the Frontpage of the  Bonn Technology Campus or contact the Office for Core Facilities and Technology Platforms