"According to a study, Baden-Württemberg is in third place among the world's particularly innovative regions - just behind the US states of Massachusetts and California. There are many reasons for this.
According to a study, Baden-Württemberg is just as innovative as California, which is known for its large number of tech companies. According to this, the "Ländle" ranks third among the world's particularly innovative regions behind the US states of Massachusetts and California, as the employer-related Institute of the German Economy (IW Cologne) announced on Thursday in its study of 121 areas worldwide.
The IW and six other international research institutes evaluated 13 indicators - including the number of start-ups, expenditure on research and development and the registration of patents.
Other federal states are also well ahead: Bavaria is in seventh place, Hesse in ninth place. Thuringia (46), Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (61) and Saxony-Anhalt (79) have some catching up to do. East Germany still has to catch up economically and needs to make further progress, especially in research and internationalization, the authors write.
On the other hand, the particularly innovative federal states scored points with a fairly high number of qualified immigrants, a strong industry and solidly high export rates. In addition, southern Germany invests particularly heavily in research and development.
There is a need to catch up in research, education and reducing bureaucracy
In order for the other regions to follow suit and for Germany as a whole to master challenges such as demographics, digitalization and climate protection, a broad political approach is needed, the authors demand. Politicians should provide more support for innovation by expanding the research bonus and investing more in education and reduce bureaucratic hurdles.
In order to master the challenge of demographics, qualified immigration to Germany must be further strengthened. Without the immigration into the MINT areas (mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology) in recent years, the skills gap would already be 386,000 higher today." [1]
1. Baden-Württemberg fast genauso innovativ wie Kalifornien
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (online)Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH. Sep 14, 2023.