The City of Hamburg has risen from 45th to 13th place on the EU’s Regional Innovation Scoreboard, to become Germany’s most dynamic city. As part of its 2018 strategy to strengthen Hamburg as a centre of science and innovation, a network of innovation parks is being created near universities and research institutions to provide more space and create an ecosystem that fosters innovation. The formation of clusters is also creating new synergies with companies settling there.
“This is the greatest progress that a European region has made,” Melanie Leonhard, Senator for Economics , told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. “The senate is providing strategic space and funding to provide the right impetus and support entrepreneurial initiatives. As Germany’s largest industrial city, Hamburg offers numerous starting points for scalable value creation through innovation. Research and invention is carried out here and startups are founded and money is earned.” Business, science and startups are mutually reinforcing. Innovation parks such as those in Altona, Bergedorf and Finkenwerder and the resulting spatial and thematic clusters create excellent conditions for innovation, she added.
Innovation parks are centres of business, technology and science. The Altona Innovation Park, for instance, is on course to become the main part of Science City Bahrenfeld. The innovation hub should appeal to R&D institutions and companies in nano/laser technology, bio/medical technology, materials science and quantum computing. The Techhub Hamburg was set up in summer 2024 with biological and chemical laboratories and office space. The Bergedorf Innovation Park is also being built beside the Energy Campus of the University of Applied Sciences and near Fraunhofer IAPT, Fraunhofer IWES and Galab Laboratories. Its industrial focus on “New Energy” is geared towards companies and institutions in wind power and the hydrogen economy, energy storage, grids/grid integration, 3D laser technology and optical technologies. The Finkenwerder Innovation Park focuses on advancing aviation and is being expanded by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) and the Centre of Applied Aeronautical Research (ZAL). A cross-location innovation quarter is being created to promote synergies in Harburg, which is already home to the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Fraunhofer CML, the Innovations Campus Green Technologies (ICGT), Tutech Innovation and DLR. The focus is on applied sciences i.e., technologies, aviation, maritime, medical technology, digitalisation and material sciences.
Public spaces in Hamburg are also designed to boost innovation. To this end, urban commercial and industrial sites are being marketed throughout the city. The business development agency Hamburg Invest completed 683 core properties with around 313 company relocations or expansions and 370 new relocations between January 2018 and October 2024. Around 82 hectares of urban commercial space have been made available in the past six years. This has resulted in 17,500 jobs and investments of more than EUR 3.9 billion. Hamburg’s efforts to boost innovation put it second in the Smart City Ranking 2024 with 86.2 out of a possible 100 points – a rise of 2.3 points over 2023, according to the Bitkom digital association.
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