At the GFZ, two Helmholtz Innovation Labs have been established as application-oriented innovation platforms in various sectors: the FERN.Lab is concerned with the sustainable use of resources in the context of remote sensing and the 3D-US Lab is dedicated to the dissemination of 3D underground seismics in mining and tunneling. Both innovation labs were funded from 2020 to 2024 by the Helmholtz Association as part of a Germany-wide initiative to establish 18 Helmholtz Innovation Labs. With numerous cooperation partners such as companies, authorities and NGOs, the labs help to ensure that, on the one hand, questions and problems of the target groups are incorporated into research and development as early as possible and, on the other hand, that licensing and contract research are successfully implemented.