Regional Innovation Monitor Plus 2016
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30 May 2016 Regional Innovation Monitor Plus 2016 Regional Innovation Report Lower Saxony (Advanced Materials) To the European Commission Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs Directorate-General Directorate F – Innovation and Advanced Manufacturing www.technopolis-group.com Regional Innovation Monitor Plus 2016 Regional Innovation Report Lower Saxony (Advanced Materials) technopolis |group| in cooperation with Henning Kroll, Fraunhofer ISI Table of Contents Executive Summary 2! 1. Advanced Manufacturing: Advanced Materials 6! 1.1 Overview of performance and trends 6! 1.2 Business sector perspective 7! 1.3 Scientific research potential 10! 1.4 Role of intermediary institutions 11! 1.5 Developing skills for the future 13! 1.6 Major investment projects 14! 1.7 International cooperation 16! 1.8 Good practice case: LeichtbauCampus Open Hybrid LabFactory 17! 1.9 Leveraging the existing potential 22! 2. Regional Innovation Performance Trends, Governance and Instruments 26! 2.1 Recent trends in innovation performance and identified challenges 26! 2.2 Institutional framework and setup 29! 2.3 Regional innovation policy mix 32! 2.4 Appraisal of regional innovation policies 37! 2.5 Policy good practice 40! 2.6 Possible future orientations and opportunities 42! Appendix A : Bibliography 46! Appendix B : Stakeholders consulted 47! Table of Figures Figure 1: Economic Growth in Lower Saxony 2000-2014 .............................................. 8! Figure 2: Open Hybrid LabFactory Thematic Focus ..................................................... 18! Figure 3: Members of the Open Hybrid LabFactory ...................................................... 19! Figure 4: New Building of the Open Hybrid LabFactory .............................................. 20! Figure 5: Open Hybrid LabFactory Exemplary Layout .................................................. 21! Figure 6: Share of SMEs in business R&D personnel (in %) ......................................... 26! Figure 7: Intra-regional disparities in Lower Saxony (Qualification) ........................... 27! Figure 8: Share of R&D-Personnel in overall industrial employment 2009 (in %) ..... 28! Figure 9: Personnel employed in Higher Education ..................................................... 28! ! Regional Innovation Monitor Plus 2016 i List of Tables Table 1: The most important industrial branches in Lower Saxony, 2013* .................... 9! Table 2: Export quotas in Lower Saxon industries, 2013* .............................................. 9! Table 3: ESIF allocations to Lower Saxony past and present ....................................... 33! Table 4: Regional Innovation Support Measures .......................................................... 36! ii Regional Innovation Monitor Plus 2016 PREFACE In the context of the growth and investment package set out in the Investment Plan of the European Commission, the Regional Innovation Monitor Plus (RIM Plus) provides a unique platform for sharing knowledge and know-how on major innovation and industrial policy trends in in some 200 regions across EU20 Member States. Launched in 2010, the Regional Innovation Monitor aimed at supporting sharing of intelligence on innovation policies across EU regions. Building upon the experience gained and results obtained during the period 2010-2012, the RIM Plus 2013-2014 provided practical guidance to regions on how to use the collected information, via a network of regional experts. Since 2014, the RIM Plus has introduced a thematic focus on advanced manufacturing. The RIM Plus 2015-2016 evolved from a general monitoring of innovation policies towards establishing a more thematic focus in selected areas in order to contribute to improving the competitiveness of European regions. Particularly, the RIM Plus aims through its activities and in close cooperation with the regional stakeholders and other relevant initiatives to: •! Contribute to the development of new and open spaces of collaboration and ex- change on advanced manufacturing, each with a clearly defined thematic focus. •! Play an enabling role in providing evidence-based information on specific themes and bring in outside perspective from other regions. •! Map out regional practices in support of advanced manufacturing and relevant pilot/demo projects and work towards involving the relevant stakeholders. •! Provide an easy access and comparative overview of regional innovation policies and relevant actions in the field of advanced manufacturing. •! Share the lessons learned with the European Commission services to feed into the preparation of future programmes. The main aim of 30 regional reports is to provide a description and analysis of devel- opments in the area advanced manufacturing with a clearly defined thematic focus and regional innovation policy, taking into account the specific context of the region as well as general trends. All regional innovation reports are produced in a standardised way using a common methodological and conceptual framework, in order to allow for hori- zontal analysis, with a view to preparing the Final EU Regional Innovation Monitor Plus report. European Commission official responsible for the project is Alberto Licciardello ([email protected]). The present report was prepared by Henning Kroll ([email protected]) (Fraunhofer ISI) . The contents and views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of the Regions, Member States or the European Com- mission. Copyright of the document belongs to the European Commission. Neither the Europe- an Commission, nor any person acting on its behalf, may be held responsible for the use to which information contained in this document may be put, or for any errors which, despite careful preparation and checking, may appear. Further information: https://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/regional-innovation-monitor Regional Innovation Monitor Plus 2016 1 Executive Summary 1. Advanced Manufacturing: Advanced Materials Lower Saxony’s advanced manufacturing competencies are mainly concentrated on a number of key clusters in (formally) mid-tech industries, most prominently the auto- motive cluster in and around Wolfsburg. Per se, there is nothing wrong with such strongholds as their large production facilities help secure regional employment and economic well-being. Moreover, the regional location of corporate decision-making in key headquarters prevents the region’s large production facilities from being relocated when framework conditions change – or at least mitigate that effect substantially. Moreover, most of the region's industries are mid-tech on the outside and high-tech at the core, as evident in the example of the car industry. •! Challenge 1: R&D concentration on a limited number of industries Despite the indisputable value of the existing poles of excellence in the automotive and a few other fields, concentration comes with vulnerability – in the short run to corpo- rate crisis and sectoral/technological cycles, in the long run to technological or busi- ness model transformations that major players may miss (‘Nokia experience’). Should large regional players fail, Lower Saxony can, to a lesser extent, draw on potential re- placements than e.g. Baden-Württemberg with its plethora of medium-sized techno- logical leaders. Finally, despite some promising developments in the fields of instru- ments, navigation, communication technology, biotechnology, and aviation, Lower Saxony still faces difficulties in attracting high-tech firms which might prove condu- cive in establishing genuine, self-sustaining clusters beyond the agglomeration of cor- porate suppliers in the vicinity of OEM production sites. •! Challenge 2: Weak intermediary landscape beyond few key centres The concentration of Lower Saxon’s innovation system on a few key players and, ac- cordingly, a limited number of hubs for science-industry collaboration around central industrial players makes it difficult for small to medium-sized firms to participate in these efforts. As the region’s lead universities naturally turn towards large corpora- tions that can offer substantial funding for strategic pre-competitive research, small and medium-sized enterprises often remain excluded from these exchanges. At the same time, small universities often do not yet possess sufficient capacities to support major efforts in advanced manufacturing or the awareness of which cases larger scale initiatives are actually open to SME participation. As long as this does not happen, smaller firms risk remaining locked into their local business and academic consulting networks that help them in dealing with current problems in an expeditious and com- petent manner – while at the same time, may keep them from developing a long term perspective. •! Challenge 3: Integrating SMEs into global value chains The region’s economy is characterised by a relatively large share of small and medium- sized firms that face a variety of challenges ranging from increasing global competition to a need to address the impending transformation of industrial production. So far, only a limited number of smaller and medium-sized firms in Lower Saxony have ac- tively entered global markets in a self-determined manner. When they have done so, however, these activities have often proven successful. Consequently, it can be as- sumed that the potentials for economic success on international markets in Lower Saxony remain less than fully exploited. If they do not belong