Innovation strategy
Thuringia has developed into a strong innovation region in recent years. The European Union's current Regional Innovation Scoreboard 2025 recognizes Thuringia as a "strong innovator" in innovation and research.
Innovation policy is increasingly expected to provide answers to many pressing questions: in societal and social issues as well as for public services and participation, decarbonization and climate change, demography and aging populations.
Innovative answers to these questions can come from science and research, as well as from the entrepreneurial and social spheres. This includes impetus for technological innovations and innovative improvements to products and processes, as well as reimagined business models, organizational structures, and services.
Improve structures, strengthen processes
Regional Innovation Strategy for the Funding Period 2021-2027
The foundation has been laid: With the "Regional Research and Innovation Strategy for Smart Specialization in Thuringia for the 2014-2020 Funding Period," the Thuringian state government has created a cooperation and coordination platform for the various stakeholders in Thuringia's innovation landscape. This will be built upon in the current funding period. The focus now shifts to concentrating on those areas of specialization with particularly high future potential.
The regional innovation strategy for the 2021-2027 funding period aims to promote the development of the five specialization fields through a multi-stakeholder approach. In addition to innovation drivers such as universities, non-university research institutions, and businesses, other actors contribute to the development of these specialization fields: cluster and network organizations, industry-related research institutions and innovation centers, as well as multipliers such as business and industry associations. All these actors simultaneously serve as links between research and application, and between innovation stakeholders and political institutions such as the state government.
Implementation of the innovation strategy
In line with a sustainable cluster policy, we are strengthening the CrossCluster approach. This means that, in addition to the five areas of specialization, we also place great emphasis on differentiation within these areas. From the multitude of topics and activities, we identify highlights that can be developed into innovative value creation networks. The focus is on those nodes in the supply and service chains that offer high potential and are strategically particularly relevant for Thuringia in that:
- Specialization advantages for Thuringia are evident,
- there are sufficient scientific and/or economic actors who have built up expertise over years,
- a high degree of practical relevance to innovative solutions for future challenges exists and
- There is high future and growth potential.
From need for action to roadmap
As part of an intensive dialogue and participation process, the following topics were initially identified: “Personalized health”, “Rethinking production: efficient, sustainable, resilient”, “Sustainable mobility and logistics for rural areas”, “Resilient digital ecosystems” and “Sustainable building and renovation”
These topics lie at the intersection of industries, technologies, and future trends, offering innovative solutions to current socio-economic and environmental challenges. In a further step, we identify and prioritize the areas where action is needed and the bottlenecks for developing these topics.
Involving stakeholders in Thuringia, we are examining where concrete approaches for innovation-based value creation networks, in line with cluster policy, can be found and are developing roadmaps for these. These roadmaps should define areas of action for each network and outline specific measures for the participating stakeholders.
RIS Governance Structure
We connect innovation stakeholders in Thuringia and, through our work, strengthen the trusting exchange between them. In particular, we are responsible for the process- and participation-oriented implementation of the "Regional Innovation Strategy for Smart Specialization and Economic Change in Thuringia." As the RIS office and a key partner in strategy implementation, we will assume greater responsibility for the conception and development of the specialization fields on behalf of the Thuringian Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Regions and Water Management (TMWLLR).
Strategy advisory boards – event formats – steering committee
We are supported in this by the Strategy advisory boardsThe Thuringian Ministry for Economic Affairs, Labour and Transport (TMWLLR) has appointed more than 80 Thuringian experts from business, science, clusters, and networks for this purpose. The strategy advisory boards contribute an overarching and strategically important component from an application and development perspective to their respective fields. A strategy advisory board is active for each area of specialization, and each board has elected a spokesperson and deputy spokesperson from among its members.
To actively involve universities, research institutions, innovation centers, companies, networks and other stakeholders, we also rely on our own, specially developed Event formatsThey create space for exchange, cooperation and new ideas – with a noticeable broad impact.
The RIS Steering Committee, chaired by the Thuringian Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Regions and Water Management (TMWLLR), is responsible for monitoring and managing the implementation of the strategy and advising on our tasks. The Steering Committee comprises representatives from the relevant departments of the TMWLLR, the RIS office, the Thuringian Development Bank, and the spokespersons and their deputies from the RIS Strategy Advisory Boards. Through active reporting, the Steering Committee ensures transparent communication with the responsible ministries and state institutions. It also meets regularly to monitor and coordinate the diverse implementation processes of the Thuringian RIS. Furthermore, the RIS Steering Committee's reporting to the ERDF/ESF Monitoring Committee provides feedback to representatives of the economic and social partners regarding the use of EU structural funds within the framework of the Thuringian RIS implementation.
Monitoring of strategy implementation
Monitoring of strategy implementation
The implementation of the innovation strategy is accompanied by monitoring. The core of this monitoring is observing the activities related to implementing the strategy and the achievement of the defined goals. Coordination of the monitoring is the responsibility of Innovativ Thüringen in its capacity as the RIS office, in cooperation with the Thuringian Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Regions and Water Management (TMWLLR) and other partners. The monitoring results are published as fact sheets.
Current evaluations
RIS Monitoring R&D Activities 2023-2024
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RIS Monitoring R&D Activities 2023-2024
RIS Monitoring: Innovation Support Activities 2022-2024
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RIS Monitoring: Innovation Support Activities 2022-2024
RIS Monitoring Impact Indicators 2021-2023
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RIS Monitoring Impact Indicators 2021-2023
Innovation survey Thuringia
The Thuringian Innovation Survey records the innovation activities of Thuringian companies in a nationally and internationally comparable format. Since 2024, it has been conducted by the Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) on behalf of LEG Thüringen as a supplementary survey to the annual German Innovation Survey. This allows the results for Thuringia to be directly compared with those of Germany as a whole and the other eastern German states. The survey complements the accompanying monitoring of the Thuringian Innovation Strategy and supports its evaluation.
