A closer collaboration between Danish and German stakeholders in the maritime sector could become a crucial lever for both innovation and competitiveness in the Fehmarn Belt region. This is the main conclusion of a new plan from the Interreg project Fehmarn Belt Innovation, which has just been published.
The plan paints a picture of the Fehmarn Belt as a joint maritime innovation space towards 2030, where companies, knowledge institutions, and public stakeholders across the border increasingly share test facilities, knowledge, and development projects. According to the analysis, the region faces many of the same challenges on both sides of the belt, but also has significant shared potential.
- The unique aspect of the Fehmarn Belt region is that Danish and German stakeholders in the maritime sector face very similar challenges and thus also have a large shared potential, says Morten Pristed, project manager at Business House Zealand, which is a partner in the project.
Business House Zealand, together with the other partners, has contributed to bringing together companies, research environments, and cluster and industry organisations from both Denmark and Germany. The work is based, among other things, on two transnational workshops held in 2025 in Kiel and at Roskilde University.
Here, participants pointed to sustainability, digitalisation, autonomous solutions, and circular economy as some of the most promising innovation tracks. The need for shared test and demonstration facilities is particularly highlighted in the report. From green maritime corridors to testing new technologies above and below water.
The plan, called a maritime roadmap, is the first of a total of three analyses from the Fehmarn Belt Innovation project. The upcoming analyses focus on Food & Bio and Smart Construction, respectively. All three will be presented together at the project's closing conference on 11 March in Rødby.
The report is prepared by Franziska Stalf on behalf of the Fehmarn Belt Innovation project and is available in both Danish and German.
Here you can read the entire report.
