Hans Sauer Foundation

What Hans Sauer Foundation does

The Hans Sauer Foundation (Hans Sauer Stiftung) is a Munich-based non-profit foundation established in 1989 that funds and supports technical and social innovation projects intended to produce societal benefit. Its work centers on three standing vehicles: the Social Design Lab, which uses design-led methods to explore socio-technical questions; the Hans Sauer Preis, a recurring award that recognises work in the foundation's thematic space; and the Förderprogramme for Citizen Science, multi-year grant cycles (most recently covering 2026–2027, with prior cycles in 2024–2025 and 2022–2023) that fund small projects run by civil-society applicants and researchers.\n\nThe foundation's core activity is grant-making and programme curation rather than technology development. It does not produce a commercial product; instead it operates an applicant-facing infrastructure built around open calls, jury-based selection, and structured co-development with academic and philanthropic partners. Recurring institutional partners include Hochschule München, Hochschule Koblenz, WWU Münster, and the IKEA Foundation, which function as co-developers and co-funders rather than as paying customers.\n\nIts financial model is that of a typical German Stiftung: an endowment established at inception generates the bulk of operating income, supplemented by donations and partnership grants. The organisation employs between 11 and 50 staff under the leadership of Vorstand Dr. Ralph Boch, with Veneta Gantcheva-Jenn heading the Förderungen function. No revenue, endowment value, or audited figures are disclosed in the available input, so any financial scaling inference is necessarily indirect.

Name

Hans Sauer Foundation

Legal name

Hans Sauer Stiftung

Website

https://hanssauerstiftung.de

Company type

Private

Founded year

1989

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Hans Sauer Foundation is a Munich-based non-profit founded in 1989 that funds technical and social innovation for societal benefit through grant cycles, a recurring prize, and a social design lab, partnering with universities and philanthropic funders.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Philanthropic Foundation & Grant Funding

NAICS

Grantmaking Foundations (813211), Grantmaking and Giving Services (81321), Research and Development in the Social Sciences and Humanities (54172)

akta.pro primary industry

Research & Science Grantmaking Foundations (BPAGAKAI)

akta.pro secondary industries

Environmental & Climate Grantmaking Foundations (BPAGAKAM), Arts, Culture & Humanities Grantmaking Foundations (BPAGAKAJ)

Keywords

• Citizen science funding
• Social innovation grants
• Nonprofit research foundation
• Participatory research programs
• Social design lab

Headquarters

HQ city

Munich

HQ country

Germany

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Foundation Grant Programs: The Hans Sauer Foundation operates as a philanthropic organization that funds citizen science and social innovation projects through annual grant programs. Revenue is derived from foundation endowment and charitable funding, distributed as grants to qualifying organizations.

Pricing tiers

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

The Hans Sauer Stiftung is a charitable foundation based in Munich that funds science and research with a focus on technical and social innovations for societal benefit. It operates the Social Design Lab as a laboratory for social design processes and runs recurring Citizen Science funding programs (Förderprogramme) that award grants of up to €20,000 to civil society research projects on socio-ecological topics.

Product overview

The Hans Sauer Foundation (Hans Sauer Stiftung) is a charitable foundation based in Munich that funds science and research with a focus on technical and social innovations for societal benefit. The foundation operates several interconnected programs: the Social Design Lab, which serves as a laboratory for social design processes; the Hans Sauer Preis, an annual award recognizing outstanding research, innovations, and best practices; and multiple Citizen Science funding programs (2022-2023, 2024-2025, 2026-2027) that support civil society research projects. The foundation also organizes conferences such as 'Commoning Spaces!' and implements smaller intervention projects through the Social Design Lab. The organization emphasizes participation, transdisciplinarity, design, and innovation as core principles.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Social Design Lab: A laboratory for social design processes that brings together actors from various fields to initiate change processes. Located in Munich, it involves interdisciplinary teams combining knowledge from science and practice to develop solutions for societal challenges.

Products and services

• Social Design Lab A laboratory for social design processes that brings together stakeholders who do not typically connect through conventional channels to initiate change processes. Transdisciplinary teams contribute knowledge from science and practice to design and prototype solutions for societal challenges.
• Hans Sauer Preis A research, technology and practice prize that alternates annually, recognizing outstanding research work, future-oriented technical innovations, and exemplary practices in business, politics, and society.
• Förderprogramm 2022-2023 "Citizen Science zu gesellschaftlichen Aspekten der Nachhaltigkeit" Funding program supporting projects that investigate societal aspects of sustainability using scientific methods and collaborative, co-creative Citizen Science approaches.
• Förderprogramm 2024-2025 "Citizen Science for Action!" Funding program supporting Citizen Science projects on socio-ecological topics, conceived, initiated and implemented by civil society actors.
• Förderprogramm 2026-2027 "Citizen Science...und dann?" Funding program focusing on the transfer and institutionalization phase of citizen science projects, supporting the sustainable embedding of findings from completed Citizen Science projects into society. Maximum 5 projects funded with €20,000 each.
• Konferenz "Commoning Spaces!" A three-day conference (October 19-21, 2026) organized jointly with Hochschule München, bringing together contributions from science and practice on activating unused spaces for the common good. Free participation with registration required.
• Social Design Lab Interventions Short-term, smaller projects in cooperation with various partners that allow the Social Design Lab to respond to current topics and opportunities in a low-threshold manner.

Named customers1 record

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Hochschule München (University of Applied Sciences Munich)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerStrategic partnership for organizing the 'Commoning Spaces!' conference in October 2026. The university faculty leadership includes Dr.-Ing. Andrea Benze (Professor for Urban Development and City Theory) and Prof. Dr. Gerald Beck (Professor for Social Innovation and Organizational Development). The collaboration focuses on vacancy detection, community-oriented urban development, and church space transformation.
• Hochschule KoblenzminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaboration with students and programs for citizen science projects including 'Bürgerplattform Koblenz' initiative.
• WWU Münster (Münster University)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner for agroforestry monitoring project with student researchers developing citizen science methodologies.

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights3 records

Emerging players

• Mozilla Foundation: International foundation supporting digital commons and open-source civic infrastructure — a useful peer for Hans Sauer's methodology of funding commons-oriented civil society projects, though in a digital rather than physical-urban domain.
• Stiftung Neue Verantwortung: Berlin-based think tank/ foundation working on digital and social policy. Comparable as a smaller, operating foundation influencing societal transformation, with a younger digital-policy focus.
• Wikimedia Foundation: International foundation sustaining a major civil-society knowledge commons. Comparable as a foundation whose mission is to maintain and grow a societal commons, though Wikimedia operates at vastly greater scale.

Direct peers

• Robert Bosch Stiftung: Major German foundation funding social innovation, participation, and societal change. Comparable as a hybrid funder-and-think-tank operating programs rather than pure grantmaking.
• VolkswagenStiftung: One of Germany's largest science-focused foundations funding research and societal innovation. Directly comparable to Hans Sauer as a German grantmaking foundation supporting research with societal impact, though at a much larger scale.
• Stiftung Mercator: German foundation with explicit focus on social-ecological transformation, sustainability, and civic participation. Closely comparable to Hans Sauer's Citizen Science and Commoning Spaces themes.
• Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU): Germany's largest environmental foundation, funding environmental and sustainability research and citizen-led projects. Directly comparable for Hans Sauer's social-ecological funding programs.

Broad incumbents

• Bertelsmann Stiftung: One of Germany's largest operating foundations with broad programs across society, education, and policy. Comparable as a large German operating foundation, though much broader in scope than Hans Sauer.
• Heinrich Böll Stiftung: German political foundation affiliated with the Greens, funding civic education, democracy, and sustainability research. Comparable to Hans Sauer's civic-participation and sustainability agenda at a much larger scale.

Others

• Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen: The German umbrella association of foundations — comparable as an ecosystem-level organization, useful for context on Hans Sauer's positioning in the German philanthropic landscape, though it is not a grantmaker itself.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCvo_iLuc2wE1_dbas5FsDeA
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/hanssauerstiftung
• Instagraminstagram.com/hanssauerstiftung

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Hans Sauer Foundation