Schleswig-Holstein has its sights set on innovation topics. Schleswig-Holstein’s research and innovation policy combines its existing strengths – for example in the areas of the life sciences, marine research, maritime technologies, energy research, materials research, microelectronics, the humanities and the social sciences – with new societal challenges. Excellent and innovative research fields form the mainstay for shaping the future in a global community. For this reason, the actors in the state create new perspectives for social and technological challenges through intelligent, resource-efficient and climate-friendly solutions. In the next few years, the focus will be on the following courses of action:
Strengthening the innovation activities of enterprises, activation of SMEs: in future, in order to sustainably increase the R&D intensity of enterprises, Schleswig-Holstein must embed innovation activities and strategies even more successfully in local companies, especially in SMEs, and improve the regulatory environment for companies. As well as activating existing companies, it places additional focus on increasing the number of start-ups. Schleswig-Holstein continues to build an environment that encourages innovative founders and new business models and is expanding its supportive environment for venture capital and experienced mentors.
Strengthening and expanding research and innovation capacities: Schleswig-Holstein is growing its regional knowledge base and the focal points of its regional learning and innovation processes by boosting and expanding the research and innovation capacities at universities and non-university research institutions. In addition, regional cooperation will be further expanded and intensified in order to exploit diverse cross-innovation potentials. Cross-sectoral cooperation serves as a catalyst for growth and innovation processes in a variety of sectors in Schleswig-Holstein.
Intensifying research transfer activities and further developing them in networked and cooperative structures: Schleswig-Holstein’s innovation policy continues to support the expansion of new infrastructures for technology and knowledge transfer. This requires the stabilisation of transfer not only between companies and scientific institutions, but also between research topics and branches of industry.
Driving digital transformation in the private sector and civil society: Benefiting from increasing digitalisation requires broad skills and a holistic understanding of the digital transformation. Schleswig-Holstein supports science and industry in making greater use of digital technologies and solutions. New spaces are also being created to test and apply digital solutions in industries and test key enabling technologies. Digital workshops and AI application centres are required to do this. These should be designed to be as topic-open as possible and address a wide range of actors. An important component in the implementation of technological transformation and digitalisation is the broad participation of people, scientific institutions, companies and regions. By the same token, digitalisation processes must contribute to solving societal challenges in both urban and rural areas.