The Annual Report on European SMEs 2020/2021, commissioned by the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA) of the European Commission, reviews the impact of the Covid 19 pandemic on EU SMEs in 2020 as well as their expected performance in 2021, after providing a brief overview of their pre-pandemic performance. The report focuses particularly on the digitalisation of European SMEs, as the use of various digital tools in 2020 helped to mitigate the impact of the pandemic.
The current study by DIW Econ, in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Claudia Kemfert, DIW Berlin, commissioned by the Bavarian SPD state parliamentary group, examines how the Free State of Bavaria can achieve a just transition into a emission neutral future. For this purpose, the study discusses specific social-ecological measures for the upcoming political reorientation in the sectors of energy, transport, buildings and industry.
The annual report shows the size, structure and importance of SMEs for the European economy and provides an overview of the past and projected development of SMEs since 2008. This year’s edition focuses on the performance of SMEs in the fields of research, development and innovation (R&I).SMEs are the backbone of the EU-28 economy. In 2018 there were just over 25 million SMEs, representing 99.8 % of all enterprises in the EU-28 non-financial business sector. The value-added of these enterprises was 56.4 %, and the employment share 66.6 %.
DIW Weekly Report 36 / 2019, pp. 631-639
More than every fourth patent filed by large German companies is based on inventions made in their research laboratories abroad. In three-quarters of the cases, the companies concentrate on technologies in which they are also particularly strong in Germany. The technological performance of research and development at home thus largely determines the innovative strength of German companies operating worldwide.
Huawei commissioned DIW Econ to determine the economic significance of the company for Germany. This study aimed to describe the economic footprint of Huawei for Germany as a business location in qualitative and quantitative terms.
Huawei Technologies is a global leader in the digital economy with headquarters in Shenzhen (China) and is active in over 170 countries. The largest locations in Germany are the Western European headquarters in Düsseldorf and the site in Munich, where the company operates a major research centre.