If you would like to learn more about Avik Chakrabarti and his research, you can find information on his UWM profile page: uwm.edu/economics/about/directory/chakrabarti-avik/ 

Information about Prof. Dr. Johannes Paha and his research group is available on the department’s website and on his personal homepage: www.jpecon.de

This joint work was advanced during the project’s kick-off meeting, organized with the support of Bremen’s Senator for Economic Affairs, Ports and Transformation and the New Energy Coalition. Over the course of the meeting, partners aligned on work packages, responsibilities, and next steps, while also discussing how technological development, economic analysis, and regional coordination can interact to accelerate the transition toward hydrogen-based energy systems. The programme also included a visit to Bremerhaven, with insights into electrolyzers, hydrogen research facilities, and other key regional assets already contributing to the emerging ecosystem.

Within the project, the University of Bremen contributes scientific and strategic expertise to support the connection between research and real-world deployment. In particular, the Faculty of Economics contributes to the analysis of hydrogen demand, market development, and long-term scale-up perspectives across several application fields such as road transport, port logistics, construction-related machinery, and hydrogen-derived fuels. This work depends on close coordination with project partners, including Eurogate, ENGINIUS, Fraunhofer, and hy.city.bremerhaven, among others, and is intended to support the broader economic and strategic perspective of the project.

The University of Bremen thanks Bremen’s Senator for Economic Affairs, Ports and Transformation, the New Energy Coalition, and all project partners for the productive exchange during the kick-off meeting and looks forward to the collaboration ahead.

The results show that those firms that patent their inventions increase their probability of survival in an industry. However, this finding applies only to the filing of product-related patents. In contrast, R&D subsidies and subsidized R&D collaborations do not increase the survival of firms over the industry life cycle. In their quantitative analysis, the authors provide detailed insights into how product patents in particular are important for firm survival, but process patents are not. Furthermore, the authors do not find survival-enhancing effects from receiving different kinds of R&D subsidies, despite their substantial amount. 

Based on the empirical findings, the authors recommend that managers engage in patenting, particularly that of product-related innovative activities. For policy makers, the authors suggest a reassessment of R&D subsidy strategies and point to the high fluctuation of subsidies over time as a potential problem.

The study was published in the journal Small Business Economics under the title “Innovation and Firm Survival over the Industry Life Cycle.”

The results show that the probability of developing a digitalization patent is higher for large firms than for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Digitalization patents are in 94 % applied for by firms, that is 6 % by SMEs and 88 % by large firms; only 6% of these applications are submitted by universities and public research institutes. The highest number of digitalization patents is produced by large firms from the automotive and electrical sector like Robert Bosch GmbH and Siemens AG; each alone produces substantially more digitalization patents than the other actors combined (i.e. universities and public research institutes).

Furthermore, an ecosystem of applied research organizations and universities as well as technology subsidies increases patent success of large firms in this field compared to more established technologies. SMEs, in contrast, only play a minor role in the development of digital technology, and the impact of their ecosystems and subsidies is less obvious.

The study hints to the various barriers to innovation that SMEs face in generating digitalization patents and provides important recommendations for technology managers and policymakers to support the transformation towards digitalization.

The study was published in the journal Technological Forecasting and Social Change under the title “Successful digital technology development: A multilevel and spatial approach on organizations and their ecosystems.”

The documentary will be broadcast on ZDFinfo on October 22, 2025, at 8:15 p.m. and can already be viewed in the media library: https://www.zdf.de/dokus/ddr-genial--100

The scientific findings presented in this documentary were developed as part of the Mod-Block-DDR project: https://www.uni-bremen.de/en/obstacles-to-modernization-in-the-economy-and-science-of-the-gdr-mod-block-ddr