Germany struggling to go digital, study finds

Germany has been ranked 17th of 35 countries in its ability to adopt to the digital age, in a report by two research centres.

The Innovation Indicator 2017 found that Germany is the fourth most innovative country in the world overall, but that there is a large gap between it and digital leaders including the UK and the United States. The study was compiled by the Centre for European Economics Research and the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research and published on 24 July.

“Internationally, Germany is still an important and respected location for innovation and has even moved up a place compared with the Innovation Indicator 2015,” said Marion Weissenberger-Eibl, director of the Fraunhofer centre. “However, this should not obscure the fact that Switzerland, Singapore and Belgium are far more innovative. For Germany to remain competitive, it must catch up, above all in the field of digitisation.”