Location Asset: Knowledge Transfer

The German Capital Region’s rich R&D landscape is another decisive asset for investors. Berlin-Brandenburg features one of Europe’s highest concentrations of R&D facilities, universities and institutes of technology. Moreover, a number of technology centres and business incubators exist in the region. Such a scientific landscape offers ideal conditions for the development of technology-oriented businesses.

Research and Development in Brandenburg

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University

Research facility

Technology transfer point

Berlin-Brandenburg boasts more than fifty universities and more than 100 research institutes, including twenty-one institutes on the Leibniz Association’s “Blue List”, nine branches of the Fraunhofer Institute, eight facilities of the Max Planck Institute, seven branches of the Herrmann von Helmholtz Society and a dozen R&D institutes run by the federal government (click here to see the entire list). Science and research thus count among the region’s main strengths and growth factors.

As many as thirty-four Nobel Prize winners in chemistry, physics and medicine were born or worked in Berlin-Brandenburg. Some 50,000 scientists work in Berlin-Brandenburg, about 31,000 of them at universities and institutes of technology. Highly specialized scientific and research institutes are available to companies as cooperative partners.

Brandenburg successfully supports young, technology-oriented start-ups: according to the findings of the German Association of Scientific Foundations (Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft), Brandenburg’s universities are among the leaders when it comes to start-up and spin-off projects. On average, there are twenty-two projects and four spin-offs for every 1,000 students in the region.

With around 230,000 students, the region’s universities and institutes of technology cater for skilled junior employees (especially engineers and natural scientists) in virtually all industries, including biotechnology, aeronautics and renewable energies. Almost 41,000 graduates arrive on the job market each year. A wealth of junior engineers and scientists graduate in Brandenburg. The region’s universities offer a vast range of highly specialised degree courses – from biotechnology and aerospace engineering all the way to renewable energies.

Brandenburg is becoming increasingly popular as a place to study. Demand is booming and enrolment is at its peak at the region’s institutes of technology and three universities, Potsdam, Cottbus and Frankfurt (Oder) (Amt für Statistik Berlin-Brandenburg).

Industry growth clusters with an attractive innovation culture are major location assets of the German Capital Region. Some 1,500 innovative companies are operating in Brandenburg. Among them, more than one hundred leading international businesses play a decisive role in the region’s clusters as interfaces between R&D and industry.

Brandenburg’s business promotion measures concentrate on nine growth clusters, five of which were developed in collaboration with Berlin. SMEs, major companies, administrations, universities, non-university R&D facilities and business associations are present in the clusters.

Brandenburg developed a highly efficient infrastructure for fast and tailored knowledge transfer between R&D and industry: the region’s universities provide direct access to the latest R&D results, while the WFBB support companies in key technologies in search of novel processes.

The forty-six technology centres and business incubators with a full range of services that operate in the region are another asset of Berlin-Brandenburg. No other German region features so many facilities of this kind. Some 520 companies with over 3,000 employees are operating in Brandenburg’s twenty technology centres and business incubators (www.tgbev.de).

Brandenburg successfully promotes innovation. Between 2001 and 2015, the ZAB supervised and supported 3,743 innovation projects. Consequently, innovative products and procedures have been developed and improved, and more than 5,500 jobs created.

Entrepreneurs in Brandenburg appreciate in particular the “innovation assistants” promoted by the regional authorities. Since the launch of the program in 1992, over 1,500 such assistants have already been promoted. A survey conducted by the WFBB revealed that 89% of the businesses polled retained their innovation assistants after termination of the state support, and that 43% even hired a second one.

Moreover, production and crafts SMEs highly appreciate the “Innovation Vouchers” available since 2010: as of December 2014, as much as 450 vouchers enabled such companies to satisfy their innovation needs.

In 2014, two innovation promotion programmes (“Innovationsassistenten” and “Brandenburg Stipendium”) were merged in a single promotion scheme called “Brandenburger Innovationfachkräfte”. Since 2015, the related innovation vouchers have been integrated in the BIG programme (“Brandenburgischer Innovationsgutschein”).