During a research project, funding for a digital application is secured, but if the application is to be sustained, it must be economically viable without funding. This can be quite challenging if there is no clear target group or the model is very complex. The distribution of costs or financing of infrastructure can also be an important factor in co-development with partners, especially when providing platforms.

In most cases, the target group of the developed digital applications consists of people. This applies to both households and businesses. The decision for or against a product, as well as its use, is therefore influenced by the background and needs of individual people, which need to be considered.

The leap from prototype to business model requires the right framework conditions, both in terms of financial and human resources and in terms of regulation. Even if these factors are difficult to influence directly, it is important to know from the outset where the limits of development lie and how these can be taken into account or even positively influenced from the outset.

Organizational barriers sometimes arise when translating a research project into a business model at the end of the project. These often occur when the continuation of the project was not planned or considered at the beginning of the project or when the application was submitted. For example, privacy agreements, copyright restrictions or a lack of reproducibility make it difficult to continue using the results after the project has ended.

In order to ensure that the digital applications developed in a research project can be put to good use in the future, many technical details need to be considered during and after a project. This includes the use of the data after the end of a project as well as the transferability and scalability of the project area and use cases considered in a project.