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First-class research and development in medicine and life sciences has emerged in the capital region in recent years. The Cluster Healthcare Industries will continue to combine the excellence of the region’s academic institutions and corporate landscape with the strengths of the digital economy to create cutting-edge technologies, sustainable applications and high-quality health-care.

New diagnostic methods allow healthcare professionals to identify diseases earlier, treat them more effectively and even prevent their onset altogether. Regenerative medicine allows doctors to treat the underlying cause of an illness and make care and treatment more effective using digital assistance systems. The Cluster aims to be at the forefront of these fast-growing topic fields and showcase the added value of these innovations for patients, hospitals and the health-care system.

The capital region will become a pioneer in translational medicine, whereby research findings will be quickly transferred into beneficial prevention, diagnostics and treatments in a targeted manner.

Innovation often starts at the interfaces between different (sub)sectors where players foster comprehensive dialogue and forge new partnerships. Berlin and Brandenburg form a region with an outstanding potential for synergies and innovation, which can only be fully harnessed by working together. The Cluster builds on this flourishing and fruitful cooperation on healthcare topics between the two states.

Effective structures and interfaces for sharing information and matchmaking are needed to ensure that the Cluster’s players can network both within and across industries and sectors as efficiently as possible. Close cooperation in turn helps transfer new ideas from research into innovative applications.

Digitalisation in healthcare offers huge potential for economic and scientific development. The availability of electronic healthcare data allows even large volumes of data to be regularly processed and analysed. This data needs to be stored in formats that are compatible with national and international standards so that they can be combined and shared between players. The key to building trust is to ensure that patient data is protected and kept securely and that patients have ultimate authority over their data.

AI promises to have major benefits for healthcare and is a core driver of digital transformation. There are a variety of players in the capital region that work extensively on AI applications for the healthcare sector. They include renowned universities and non-university research institutions as well as highly innovative, technology-driven businesses. The region is drawing on this expertise and its status as the German capital, which affords them access to key players and initiatives, to position itself as the world’s leading location for digital healthcare solutions.

If innovative solutions and their business models are to have long-term impact and benefit people, they need to be integrated into holistic healthcare concepts. This requires new administrative and technical systems to be set up, while competency in applying and using healthcare innovations needs to be strengthened. Digitalisation also offers citizens new opportunities to take a greater role in looking after their own health.

The Cluster supports the creation of real-world laboratories and test beds in the capital region to develop and test innovations in real-life applications.

With an advanced technology and research landscape, a strong digital economy and extensive research capacities in social sciences, the Berlin-Brandenburg region has all the main ingredients to start testing innovative healthcare concepts in real-world environments. Such innovations are particularly important for addressing regional differences between infrastructures in rural areas and in the Berlin metropolitan area.

Integrated care is the focus of future healthcare. Cooperation and digital networking between all specialist disciplines and sectors can be further developed as a real-world laboratory in Berlin-Brandenburg. The Cluster Healthcare Industries uses the potential of the capital region to test sustainable and future-oriented care approaches, cooperation strategies and logistics solutions. In this way it is planned that the capital region be able to adopt a model character on both the national and international level and deliver stimulus for other regions

To ensure the capital region’s future performance, the Cluster Healthcare Industries focuses on the healthcare region’s qualified workforce in the focal area “Work environments”.

New working concepts are being developed – termed “new work” – where social change meets the new needs and requirements from employers and employees alike regarding flexibility. Career paths are become more diverse, digitalisation is changing the way in which work is organised, and new skills requirements and profiles are emerging. The key issue across sectors is how to make the new work environments a place that promotes health. To support these developments, the Cluster is helping create a dialogue around “Work 4.0” to set the agenda going forward.

In this regard, it is crucial for the performance of the health region that there is an appetite to work in the healthcare industry and that the industry retains its skilled employees. Life science regions around the world are developing into extremely attractive locations, drawing in investment and talent. Attractive career prospects, flexible working hours, a stimulating and collaborative working environment and even sustainability and gender equality in the workplace are increasingly proving to be success factors in talent marketing, recruiting and staff retention. These are crucial for combating the shortage of skilled employees in many industries and enhancing the capital region’s appeal.

Berlin-Brandenburg is known as the home of a vibrant start-up scene that attracts bright minds, venture capitalists and players with business start-up services to the region. Europe enjoys a much higher than average availability of venture capital and a high-density start-up landscape, including numerous biotech start-ups and spin-offs from universities and non-university research institutions.

Even though the capital region has the most dynamic and attractive start-up ecosystem in Germany and is a leading location in Europe, the life sciences and healthcare scenes still need to be developed further.

Players in the Cluster Healthcare Industries will therefore work on making start-up conditions even more fertile for new businesses to flourish, supporting the rollout of spin-offs and helping them to access and become established in regional networks

Value chains and networks are more global than ever before, not least due to digitalisation. This being the case, raising the profile of our location internationally is pivotal to keeping the capital region’s innovation systems competitive and attractive.

The region’s healthcare industry has a strong skills portfolio and an innovative spirit that place it in the same league as international competitors.

The region seeks to gain more recognition internationally, and innovations created here are to receive support to be publicised to a greater extent nationally and internationally. The Cluster’s increased cooperation with other internationally leading healthcare locations will also help achieve this.

The capital region is building its reputation in global health. As a key location for solutions to global health challenges, the region will seek out players from across the world.