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First Class Regional Cities: Brno

#Locations

I started CTP in Humpolec, a small town about half way between Prague and Brno and have always been interested in the history and potential of Brno itself.  

About 15 years ago we began with some serious investment there: 2 of the largest and most successful industrial parks in Central Europe, premium office parks, and inner city business parks, all set up for innovation. We recently completed a modern housing concept, Domeq, designed with young professionals and students in mind. It’s proven to be a worthy investment and one that’s informed CTP’s wider strategy of investing in regional cities throughout central, eastern, and southern Europe.

Indeed, since CTP has been active in Brno, the city has seen a renaissance as an IT and engineering hub with other highly specialised sectors like high-tech manufacturing, nanotech, biotech, R&D, software development and energy moving in. Earlier this year, the European Space Agency opened a business incubation centre there. A few years ago, CEITEC began operations there with scientists and post doctoral students from all over the world doing research in a wide range of disciplines.

Again, all of this is no surprise given its history. Sitting at the crossroads of the historical Amber Trail and the Silk Road, the city has a rich history of being a centre of learning and innovation. Brno University of Technology is the second largest and the second oldest technical university in the Czech Republic. In the early 1900s it was among the best technical universities in Europe with Electrotechnical disciplines first taught there in 1905. Viktor Kaplan invented the Kaplan turbine, propeller-type water turbine in Brno. The founder of genetics, Gregor Mendel, created his revolutionary scientific theories in Brno and Mendel University currently has roughly 10,000 students. In fact, about 20% of Brno residents are students. In 2017, Brno ranked 4th best student city in the world based on ratings from students and recent graduates.

Due to its location, history and the amount university activity, I expect there will be much more innovation coming out of this city. And our clients, significant ones like Thermo Fisher, Honeywell, IBM, Oracle and others, are all proving this to be the case. Even the city itself is supporting this strategy. Since 2013, the City of Brno has increased its funding for scientific R&D nearly five-fold to 2 million Euro annually, has over 20,000 people employed in Science and Research and last year registered close to 100 new patents…. not bad for a city of fewer than half a million people.

Further Reading –> https://data.brno.cz/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/EN_Zprava_o_stavu_mesta.pdf

 

Author: Remon Vos/October 23, 2018