“The innovation strategy will allow Hamburg to set impulses and make the city and the entire metropolitan region fit for the future,” said Michael Westhagemann, Senator for Economics. The strategy meets the requirement for using EU structural funds. "The strategy is characterised by the courage to think big and to try things out. It is a valuable orientation for the planned north German innovation strategy, supraregional co-operation as well as national and international networking." The forward-looking measures planned include setting up a state innovation funding scheme as a basis for developing several science clusters.
The senate has presented a new Regional Innovation Strategy (RIS) to drive the development of innovative and sustainable solutions for key parts of society and forward-looking sectors. Emphasis is on health, climate and energy, mobility, data science and digitalisation as well as material sciences and new materials, a press release said Thursday (May 18, 2021). RIS is the result of an open development process involving more than 300 stakeholders in business, science, research, education, culture and society. The city intends playing an active and formative role and will boost co-operation between science and business. Plans are also being laid to set up a state innovation funding scheme.
Plans for state innovation funding
Innovation ecosystem for Hamburg as a centre of science
An economic innovation ecosystem consisting of start-ups, technology centres, company dependencies and transfer facilities is to be set up close to scientific fields with particular transfer potential and along the lines of the "Cambridge model". The state innovation funding could also raise the competitiveness of Hamburg's universities in important federal and EU programmes, according to the senate. Katharina Fegebank, Senator for Science, Research and Equality, noted: "We want to network science and industry even better, expand transfer projects and advance innovative developments in science and research." The RIS will be developed continuously to anticipate challenges and emerging future topics.
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