NRW at a glance.
Industrial strength. Scientific excellence. High-tech made in NRW.
Coal and steel didn’t just become history in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Industrial experience gave rise to high-tech.
North Rhine-Westphalia has never lost its industrial DNA—it has learned to reinvent it time and again. Raw materials became high-performance materials, production became precision, and research became application. This is precisely where the region’s particular strength lies: NRW combines industrial substance with scientific excellence, technological breadth, and the ability to translate innovations into tangible value creation.
Today, North Rhine-Westphalia is not only Germany’s most populous state but also its strongest economic hub: in 2025, goods and services worth approximately 909 billion euros were produced here; the state’s share of Germany’s total economic output exceeded 20 percent. For NMWP.NRW, what is particularly relevant is how closely industrial applications, research, small and medium-sized enterprises, startups, and key technologies are interconnected.
About 18 million
residents make North Rhine-Westphalia the most populous state in Germany.
909 billion €
in gross domestic product, making it the strongest economy among the federal states.
9,8 million
people in the workforce make up one of Germany’s largest labor and economic regions.
27 %
of gross value added in North Rhine-Westphalia is attributable to the manufacturing sector.
78 + >50
50 colleges and universities and other research institutions shape NRW as a place for science
NRW as a hub for high-tech and materials
North Rhine-Westphalia is not only a major economic region but also a hub where industrial expertise, materials expertise, and technological applications converge particularly closely. This is particularly crucial for the focus areas of NMWP.NRW: new materials, functional surfaces, nano- and microsystems technology, photonics, semiconductor technologies, and quantum technologies make their impact felt precisely where they are translated into industrial processes, products, and applications.
Over the decades, new fields of expertise have emerged in NRW from traditional industries: steel has given way to high-performance materials, production has evolved into precision manufacturing, and broad-based industrial activity has created an environment for key technologies. It is precisely this combination that makes NRW so relevant as a hub for high-tech and materials innovation.
Science meet business
Innovation arises where research, application, and industrial needs converge. North Rhine-Westphalia offers an exceptionally dense science and research landscape for this purpose: universities, non-university research institutions, application-oriented institutes, companies, and startups are working at the intersections of materials development, micro- and nanotechnologies, photonics, manufacturing, digitalization, and new applications.
For NMWP.NRW, this proximity between science and industry is a key locational advantage. It lays the foundation for identifying technological developments early on, highlighting areas of expertise, and supporting their transfer into concrete applications.
You want to know which areas of expertise, stakeholders, and key technologies define North Rhine-Westphalia as a business location?
Discover relevant topics, find the right contacts, or show your own expertise within North Rhine-Westphalia’s high-tech ecosystem.