With its outstanding location factors, North Rhine-Westphalia offers those opportunities that are necessary for the development and creation of innovative products, processes, business models and services.
With around 18 million citizens, North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous and – in absolute figures – the most economically powerful state in Germany. With its outstanding location factors, it offers those opportunities that are necessary for the development and creation of innovative products, processes, business models and services.
Business Location
The close integration of science, research, production and services as well as the proximity to sales and procurement markets are a major plus for North Rhine-Westphalia as a location and create an ideal environment for all players along the value chain. From North Rhine-Westphalia, investors, entrepreneurs, researchers and developers reach around 160 million consumers within a radius of 500 km. 17 of the 50 German companies with the highest sales are based in NRW.
With around 712,000 companies, North Rhine-Westphalia has the largest proportion of small or medium-sized companies in Germany and is also home to the largest number of large family businesses.
World-class research and innovations from North Rhine-Westphalia
The combination of technology and world market leaders and internationally renowned cutting-edge research in North Rhine-Westphalia is unique worldwide. The research landscape in NRW is one of the densest in Europe.
In NRW, 67 universities, including two elite universities, 14 clusters of excellence and five graduate schools, provide top-level research and teaching. Whether at the elite universities RWTH Aachen and Cologne, at the Research Center Jülich, in the top clusters, such as it’s OWL, or at the Fraunhofer and Max Planck Institutes – many thousands of scientists and developers drive the know-how in their fields a little further every day. Thus, NRW has the best conditions for innovation and technology transfer and an excellent environment for research and development from which companies can benefit.
Highly qualified workforce
North Rhine-Westphalia is the state of highly qualified and motivated workers. An outstanding education system ensures the internationally recognized high level of knowledge and skills of the local workforce. In one of the densest university landscapes in Europe, more than 756,000 young people study at state and private universities. The companies also produce excellently trained specialists – workers for successful companies in North Rhine-Westphalia. This location factor, which should not be underestimated, is the basis of North Rhine-Westphalia’s innovative capacity and growth.