A new innovation strategy for Thuringia.
Today, the Zeiss Planetarium in Jena is the oldest such facility in continuous operation anywhere in the world. Its development was the start of an exciting new field of technology. Now, almost 100 years after this breakthrough event, we in Thuringia still have the know-how and the right instincts for innovative, world-changing discoveries.
By applying the new Thuringian Innovation Strategy, we are bundling our many strengths while focusing on our single biggest competence: close, networked collaboration among our scientific institutions, our business community, and our policymakers. This is what enables us to quickly turn promising ideas into the reality of innovative products and services!
By jointly finding the solutions to today’s challenges, we are securing our economic future and paving the way for Thuringia to progress towards innovation leadership.
This project is co-financed by the European Union (EFRE) and the Free State of Thuringia (Thuringian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Science and Digital Society).
Smart specialization for Thuringia.
Developing an innovation strategy for Thuringia means setting clear priorities, ones that take account of the Free State’s unique strengths and potentials.
More than 500 stakeholders representing the business sector, the scientific community, and various intermediaries took part in the process of discovering the region’s most promising growth fields and using these findings as a basis to develop a shared vision for Thuringia. The result is “RIS3 Thuringia,” a Thuringian Innovation Strategy comprising five fields of innovation. These five fields of innovation consist of four fields of specialization plus one cross-sectoral field.
Implementing the Thuringian Innovation Strategy.
Five working Groups - one for each of the fields of innovation defined by the topics it addresses - play the central role in implementing the innovation strategy. These working groups meet at regular intervals in order to identify new focuses for development and to jump-start various projects. From the drawing board to real-life implementation - this is where Thuringia’s future success is being charted.
The basic guideline for implementing the content of the innovation strategy is the “entrepreneurial process of discovery.” This defines the dynamic and flexible working procedures to be followed by all the participating entities.
The five Thuringian fields of innovation.
Thuringia’s economy features a wide range of industries. Some have a long tradition in the region, such as optics, automobile manufacturing, mechanical engineering, and medical technology. But other, newer industries have also managed to establish themselves in Thuringia, such as micro/nanotechnology, logistics, energy technology, and environmental engineering.
In order to ensure that Thuringia’s strengths can be further enhanced intelligently and strategically, the Thuringian Innovation Strategy concentrates on five fields that are characterized by significant dynamism as far as their innovative potential is concerned. The term “fields of innovation” specifically refers to the four fields of specialization and one cross-sectoral field defined in the “RIS3 Thuringia” document (Research and Innovations Strategies for Smart Specialization in Thuringia).
Partners and stakeholders.
One of the main objectives of the Thuringian Innovation Strategy is to promote regular communication and exchanges of information between the business sector, the scientific community, and further Thuringian stakeholders. The densely interlinked network this creates will give rise to interface points for innovations in a wide range of sectors.
Become part of the Thuringian network and find the right partners for your projects!
