Turn your economic region into a hotspot for innovation!
Turn your economic region into a hotspot for innovation!
Learn how to turn your economic region into a magnet for startups, companies, and talent through systematic open innovation approaches — from the initial challenge to a sustainable innovation hub.
A practice-oriented seminar specifically for economic development agencies, clusters, and ministries: strategies, formats, and practical experience to help your economic region become a sustainable innovation hotspot.
Why this seminar?
Innovation is the engine of economic development. However, many open innovation initiatives in economic regions and clusters fizzle out because they are not strategically embedded, are poorly designed, or are not professional enough.
This seminar will show you:
- How to establish open innovation as an integral part of your regional innovation strategy.
- Which formats are truly effective—and how to tailor them to your goals.
- How successful economic development agencies and clusters manage to establish a vibrant innovation ecosystem.
What to bring with you for a day trip:
- Strategically anchoring open innovation
- Select and prepare suitable formats
- Partner & Portfolio Management
- Monitoring, scaling, and governance
Seminar contents
Four modules that bring together what economic regions need: strategy, format selection, implementation, and sustainable anchoring.
1. Fundamentals & Strategic Anchoring
- Closed vs. open innovation: Opportunities for economic regions and clusters
- Assessing the situation: How innovative is your region or cluster really?
- Open innovation as a strategic process – not a flash in the pan, but an ongoing task
2. Overview of open innovation formats
- Startup scouting: Early access to trends and technologies
- Hackathons and challenges: Providing rapid impetus
- Venture clienting: Startups as solution partners for companies
- Incubators & accelerators: Promoting regional value creation
- Open innovation hubs: Platforms for long-term cooperation
3. Success factors & pitfalls
- Wrong format, missing partners, overly hasty expectations – the 5 typical pitfalls
- Best practices from successful projects
- Ensuring governance, financing, and scaling
4. Implementation in practice
- How to systematically select suitable partners (startups, universities, companies, investors, multipliers)
- Building a regional innovation management portfolio
- Monitoring, evaluation, and scaling of successful projects
Your specific seminar goals
After this seminar, you will be able to:
- Strategically anchoring open innovation in your economic region
- Select the right formats for your goals and implement them successfully
- Manage partners and projects in a targeted manner instead of relying on individual initiatives
- Structure and measure the transfer of innovations to your region
- Building a sustainable, closely networked open innovation ecosystem
Turn your economic region into a hotspot for innovation!
Register now for the seminar and secure your place.
Who is this seminar suitable for?
- Specialists and executives from economic development agencies and ministries of economic affairs
- Managers from cluster management teams
- Heads of start-up and innovation centers
- Local and regional decision-makers who want to use open innovation professionally
What makes this seminar special
- Practical and proven: Content is based on over 50 successfully supported open innovation projects.
- Direct added value for economic development agencies and clusters: All content tailored to the challenges of regional innovation work.
- System instead of chance: You will learn methods that make open innovation plannable and measurable.
Our references for successful open innovation projects for economic regions (excerpt)
Establishment of Digital Innovation Hub Düsseldorf/Rheinland GmbH | mehr dazu
Support for the launch of the new international hydrogen startup hub H2UB | mehr dazu
Design and implementation of an open innovation challenge for venture clienting | mehr dazu
Future Tech Fest – Establishing a leading event for B2B tech startups in Düsseldorf | mehr dazu
Register now for the next seminar date
Next appointment:
10 October 2025
In-person workshop (Düsseldorf)
(Online version & in-house workshops on request)
