The article reports on how the steel industry in Germany, as a key supplier of materials and innovations to the construction sector, is carrying out a comprehensive optimization of the management of pre-competitive cooperative research (CR) on steel applications in the construction industry. A significant aspect of this is the central use of an innovation broker (IB) role throughout the innovation process. The varying project expectations of science and industry and the related IB tasks are identified as part of an interdisciplinary research cluster on the sustainability of steel in the construction industry. A task profile is drawn up for the IB in cooperative research on the basis of various key person concepts from industrial innovation research. It is expected that the consistent implementation of this profile will increase the innovation successes from CR between the steel industry and the construction sector.