BIP 2017
The results of the Berlin Innovation Panel (BIP) 2017 were presented on April 9, 2018, during a press conference held by the chairman of Technologiestiftung Berlin, Nicolas Zimmer, and State Secretary Christian Rickerts. Once again, the data underscores Berlin’s exceptional development as an innovation location.
The results of the survey conducted in the last year showed after a decline over the previous years now a slight increase in the share of companies stating that they have introduced product or process innovations in the preceding 3-year period. This applied to Berlin, comparable metropolitan areas, and the German average. The rate in 2017 in Berlin is located above 50 % and is still above the national average of 46 % and also higher than in other German cities (Figure 1).
A closer look at the trends differentiated by size-classes of the companies reveals some differences in the developments for the companies in Berlin.
After the declines of the share of innovators among the small companies in the last years, we observe now for the first time again a slight increase (Figure 2). In contrast, the shares for the large and medium-sized companies remained constant. The same trends can be observed for the small companies in Germany as whole, but on a more moderated level (Figure 3).
Figure 5 illustrates the share of innovators among companies in Berlin from the 2017 survey, differentiated by secvtors. Here, the electronics, measurement and optics companies increased the share of innovators from 71% to 81% and are leading the ranking in 2017 followed by companies active in the software development (69%) and in the chemical, pharmaceutical and plastic industry (66%).
Meanwhile, we can observe the development of innovation cooperations of Berlin companies differentiated by type of partners over three points of time. Figure 6 reveals two interesting trends. One one hand, customers from the private sector are becoming in 2016 much more relevant as partner in innovation cooperations compared to 2014 and 2012. Obviously, more and more companies in Berlin involve their customers in their innovation process compared to the stagnating share for German companies in general (Figure 7). On the other hand, the development of collaborations of companies with public research organizations show more or less the same pattern, whereas this share of all German companies displays only a slightly increase. In total, the companies in Berlin increasingly realize Open Innovation in practice, whereas the rest of companies in Germany are left behind.
