CLIB at the Innovationskongress NRW 2025

800 participants, a brand-new location, and two events merged for the first time to bundle North Rhine-Westphalia’s innovative strength even more effectively. That was the Innovationskongress NRW yesterday at the EUREF Campus in Düsseldorf. Our colleagues Dennis and Katrin were present with an exhibition booth, a lot of curiosity and open minds to meet new contacts.

NRW Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst, Minister Mona Neubaur, Minister Ina Brandes have found motivating words to further fuel the courage and will for transformation in North Rhine-Westphalia. Together with Silke Krebs, State Secretary in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Action and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia; Prof. Achim Wambach, PhD President of ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research; Johanna A. Tjaden-Schulte, Member of the Executive Board of NRW.BANK; and Lauren Kjeldsen Executive Board Member of Evonik Industries discussed the strengths, but also the challenges of innovation in NRW. We were especially delighted to see that two of our long-standing members – NRW.BANK and Evonik – were present on this panel and that industrial biotechnology played such a major role in the discussion. In six different topic strands smaller workshops and panel discussions gave insights to developments, best practices and experiences by innovators.

🏆 The afternoon ended with a highlight – the presentation of the Innovationspreis NRW. In four categories innovative companies were awarded – and three of them are active in the biotechnology.

🏅 Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Holger Stark (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf) won the Innovation award endowed with 75.000 € for a new class of drugs for glaucoma.

🏅 The former scholarship holder of the CLIB Graduate Cluster Industrial Biotechnology PhD Dr. Christian Schwarz (Numaferm) & Prof. Dr. Lutz Schmitt (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf) won the innovation2business award for their platform technology Numaswitch.

🏅 Dr. Martin Schleef (PlasmidFactory GmbH – The Minicircle Company) won the innovation2market award for their minicircles – small plasmids used e.g to fight cancer.

🏅 The audience award innovation4transformation was given to Dr.-Ing. Andreas Bremen (Co-reactive), who wants to transform the building sector with his technology to mineralise CO₂ produced by the cement industry and re-use it as an additive to cement, proving circular system do work in large industrial sectors.

👏 We congratulate all winners and are looking forward to seeing them scale their business and help drive the transformation!

👉 If you want to read more about the Innovationspreis NRW and the Innovationskongress NRW, you can find all information on www.innovation.nrw