The South Moravian Region is building its growth on an exceptionally strong research base. According to the latest data from 2024, the region’s knowledge intensity reached 2.9%, the highest in the Czech Republic and higher than the EU average of 2.2%. Total investment in research and development increased by 8.3% year-on-year to EUR 1.04 billion.
Most of these activities are concentrated in Brno, where 94% of regional R&D activities take place. The private sector plays a significant role: companies have increased their spending by 73% over the last ten years and invested €610 million in R&D in 2024 alone.The two largest investors in corporate R&D in the region are Honeywell and Thermo Fisher Scientific.
By sector, the largest part of corporate R&D expenditure is directed to IT, which with EUR 246 million accounts for 40% of all corporate investment in innovation in the region. Manufacturing is the second strong pillar with €208.2 million in investment, with the most significant growth in the production of electronic and optical equipment. Expenditure in this area has more than quadrupled since 2015, from €20.8 million to €90.9 million in 2024.
“The new data confirms that South Moravia has a solid foundation for a higher value-added economy. Behind this result is a long-term cooperation with the city, universities and companies, for which I would like to thank them from the bottom of my heart. Research and development is not a peripheral activity here, but one of the main pillars of regional development. This is important not only for the competitiveness of the region, but also for the whole Czech Republic, which needs to stand on innovation, technological entrepreneurship and the ability to compete in European and global competition,” says Jan Zámečník,Deputy Governor of the South Moravian Region.
A strong research base also translates into the region’s attractiveness to capital. With a volume of €42.7 million, 2025 was the second strongest investment year in the region’s modern era. The cybersecurity sector attracted a significant part of this sum: Whalebone, ThreatMark and Safetica together raised almost €40 million at the beginning of the year alone. At the same time, the data report shows that this is not a one-off blip. Over the past five years, companies from the region have received investments of at least €300 million, and of these, cybersecurity is one of the areas in which South Moravia is of global importance.
In addition to investments in startups, an important signal is also what other fields are transcending the Czech context. One in three electron microscopes in the world is being built in Brno. In semiconductors, it is the centre of chip development in the Czech Republic and relies on the background of research teams, successful companies and the Czech Semiconductor Centre. The region is also growing in importance in the aerospace, defence and space industries, where industrial tradition, research and new technology companies are coming together.
“Brno’s innovation environment is not based on one specialisation, but on a system of fields that are of strategic importance for the security, resilience and future prosperity of Europe. It is this breadth and the ability to link research and business that gives the region its extraordinary strength,” saysAnna Putnová, Brno’srepresentative for innovation and cooperation with research organisations.
Just as important as companies and investment is the region’s ability to attract and educate people for these fields. In 2025, 68,236 people were studying at Brno’s universities. Of these, nearly 36,000 are in STEM and related fields, including medicine, agriculture and veterinary science, so more than half of those studying are in these fields. At the same time, almost a quarter of students come from abroad.
IT, science and technology are the driving forces of the modern economy and this is doubly true in the South Moravian Region. In 2024, more than 70,000 people worked in these fields, of which 25,000 worked in IT and 45,000 worked in other scientific and technical positions. The vast majority of them, about 95%, work in the private sector. Wages in these fields are among the highest in the region.
The region also has an exceptionally strong research and development workforce, with over 23,000 people working in research and development. To give you an idea: this is a similar amount of scientific talent to the much more populous and wealthy regions around cities like Dresden, Nuremberg, Malmö or Aarhus. Brno and its surroundings are thus on a par with established European technology centres in terms of research capacity.
The data report also shows another international context. In terms of knowledge intensity, the South Moravian Region is at the level of advanced innovation regions in Europe, such as Tampere, Oulu, Bremen or Hamburg.
And in terms of startup activity, impact and the quality of the business environment, it has risen to 186th place worldwide and 12th place in Central and Eastern Europe in the Global Startup Ecosystem Index 2025. With a year-on-year growth of 22.5%, it outperformed a number of European cities including Bratislava, Dresden and Malmö. This also confirms that South Moravia is not just a strong Czech region, but an increasingly prominent international technology and innovation hub.
Source: JIC
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