Innovation atlas: Baden-Württemberg takes first place in innovations – state

Compared to other federal states, Baden-Württemberg is very innovative, as a study by the German Economic Institute shows. The Stuttgart area particularly stands out.

The country Baden-Wuerttemberg scores according to a study by the employer-related Institute of the German Economy (IW) with a particularly high degree of innovation. This emerges from the innovation atlas of the Cologne IW published on Friday. Benchmarks are expenditure for research and development, workers in the so-called MINT area, company start-ups, degree of digitization and patent applications.

The state of Bavaria took second place. Hesse and Lower Saxony follow. This means that the south of Germany is particularly well represented in the front places. It looks significantly worse in the ranking in the north and especially in the east. In the bottom four places are Schleswig-Holstein, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony-Anhalt at the bottom. The city states of Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen, which were recorded separately, are all in the middle.

Strong north-south divide

“For all indicators of innovative strength, there is a strong south-north, west-east and urban-rural divide,” according to the authors of the study. It is warned that rural regions in particular could “permanently lose touch”. The IW recommends expanding government funding for research and development in companies and promoting the immigration of experts.

The data at district level are also recorded in the innovation atlas. As a result, there are also regions with outliers upwards or downwards in the federal states rated as particularly strong or particularly weak. In general, the intensity of research and development in urban regions is higher than in rural ones. However, urban districts are generally ahead of large cities in metropolitan areas.

In the overall ranking, the Stuttgart area leads ahead of Braunschweig/Wolfsburg and Baden-Baden/Karlsruhe. At the end of the scale are Mansfeld-Südharz, Lüchow-Dannenberg/Altmark and at the bottom Ostprignitz-Ruppin/Prignitz.

MINT subjects in the focus of the study

According to the IW, the spread in business spending on research and development is very high. According to the study, the top value is 9.56 percent of the gross value added in the Wolfsburg/Brunswick region, followed by the Stuttgart area and Ingolstadt. However, two thirds of the economic areas miss the target of a value of two percent. The weakest value is only 0.08 percent in the Emden/Aurich/Leer area.

According to the IW, the academic qualifications of the workforce in the fields of mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology (MINT) are an important factor for the innovative power of a region. Accordingly, Hamburg achieves the highest value here, followed by Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. At the lower end of the scale are Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt and, at the bottom, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

City-states score when it comes to digitization

However, when it comes to the digitalization of production, development and business models, the three city-states achieve the top spots. Here, too, Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania came off the weakest. Within the non-city states, the Munich area has the highest value and the Eifel region has the lowest value.

The highest number of patent applications is in Baden-Württemberg, the lowest in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The Stuttgart area is the leader at the regional level. Wilhelmshaven/Friesland brings up the rear here.