High-Tech made in NRW
In a highly industrialised country like Germany, technologies are not only the basis for prosperity, they also change society. They produce innovations in important areas of our lives, which result in new solutions for the major challenges of our time, e.g. mobility, digitalisation, climate protection or a sustainable energy supply.
Through consistent networking and promotion, the NRW state government supports the key technologies – which include in particular the fields of new materials, nanotechnology, microsystems technology and photonics. North Rhine-Westphalia occupies a leading position nationwide in these 4 areas:
Excellent science
With over 70 universities and more than 50 non-university research institutions, including twelve Max Planck Institutes jointly funded by the federal and state governments, 13 Fraunhofer Institutes, three Fraunhofer Application Centres and one Fraunhofer Project Group, eleven Leibniz Institutes, three Helmholtz Association research centres and one Helmholtz Institute as well as 15 state-funded institutes of the Johannes Rau Research Association, NRW has the highest density of research institutes. In addition, there are numerous clusters of excellence for future topics, such as CASA (cyber security) and ML4Q (quantum technologies).
Mix of SMEs, large companies and research
Numerous international corporations and SMEs – often as global market leaders in their segment – form an outstanding innovation ecosystem in North Rhine-Westphalia. Some of them are ‘hidden champions’. Important impulses for future topics come from the internationally recognised NRW industry: from the chemical industry and the pharmaceutical industry to mechanical and plant engineering and the energy sector.
People are curious – this seems to be particularly true for the people of NRW. This is because the NRW economy is constantly reinventing itself and thus securing its own competitiveness: for example, the state of the ‘old steelmakers’ now supplies high-performance materials such as those for additive manufacturing and lightweight construction.
Inventing the future together.
With its activities, the technology cluster NMWP.NRW supports companies and research institutions from North Rhine-Westphalia in the development of strategies and research projects in the fields of nanotechnology, microsystems technology, innovative materials and photonics. Through our interdisciplinary network, we help to identify new innovation topics and potential by bringing together players with different perspectives.
Our conviction? By working together across companies, sectors and disciplines, progress can be made that will shape the technology landscape of the future.
