About Baden-Württemberg - Research and Innovation
Baden Württemberg is one of the leading regions for research in Germany and Europe. With its extensive research and development capacities and successful cooperation between companies, universities and non-university research institutions, makes 24% of the total investments enjoyed by R&D in Germany.
In 2009, the proportion of R&D expenditure in relation to GDP rose to a new record level of 4.8% (research intensity rate all of Germany: 2.8%). Baden-Württemberg is therefore one of the leading regions in the international comparison. Baden-Württemberg's research intensity rate of 4.8% is the highest in the European Union. It is clearly in the lead compared to other top-spending countries such as Finland, with 3.9%, and Sweden, with 3.6%. The joint average research intensity rate of all 27 EU countries is only around 2.0%.
Baden-Württemberg is one of the regions of Europe which may lay claim to the highest number of universities and colleges and the most intensive research activity. It has a sophisticated and highly developed research infrastructure in which the fields of fundamental research and application-oriented research with close links to industry are equally represented, and which is supplemented by a broad and intricate system of transfer institutes.
The Land has 9 universities, 2 private universities, 6 universities of education, 8 art colleges, 23 universities of applied sciences, 7 internally administered and 10 private colleges and 8 vocational academies, which are also considered part of the higher education system.
11 of the 80 Max Planck Institutes, 14 of the 60 Fraunhofer Institutes and 25% of the research capacity of the institutions of the Helmholtz Society, including the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg, are based in the Land. A total of over 100 non-university research facilities in Baden-Württemberg maintain links with the Land's universities through a wide range of activities. More than 300 transfer centres of the Steinbeis Foundation in Baden-Württemberg consider their main sphere of competence to be the implementation of research results from the universities in industry through development projects, consultancy and training. The Steinbeis Transfer Centres are clustered predominantly at universities of applied sciences, but also increasingly at universities.