Leipzig as a research location
Once touted by Goethe as a ‘Little Paris’, Leipzig has a long and rich tradition of higher learning and is home to Germany’s second-oldest university after Heidelberg. More recently, the city has also earned renown as a wonderful city to live in with plenty of cultural and free time activities to go with its excellence as a hub of research.
All of the country’s major research bodies have a significant presence in Leipzig. The Max Planck Institutes for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, for Mathematics in the Sciences, and for Evolutionary Anthropology are all located here. The Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology is here, joining the Fraunhofer Centre for Central and Eastern Europe. Other institutions include the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography and the German Biomass Research Centre.
The city is also home to BIO CITY LEIPZIG, a continually expanding hotspot for biotech startups and cutting-edge biotech and medical research in cooperation with Leipzig University. Professors and research groups from six different university faculties are present at the Centre for Biotechnology and Biomedicine (BBZ), making it a key hub of knowledge transfer and cooperation between science and business.
History
Leipzig was first documented as ‘urbs Libzi’ (city of lime trees) in 1015 in the chronicles of Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg and endowed with city and market privileges in 1165 by Margrave Otto the Rich. Merchants and craftsmen are first documented to have settled in Leipzig from 1218, and by the mid-18th century, Leipzig was highly respected throughout Europe as a place of learning and commerce.
In 1813, the Leipzig region was the arena for the Battle of the Nations in which an allied coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia and Sweden defeated Napoleon’s armies as part of the ‘Wars of Liberation’. Leipzig’s Monument to the Battle of the Nations (‘Völkerschlachtdenkmal’) is Europe’s tallest monument. By the 19th century, Leipzig was a centre of the publishing industry.
As was the case for many cities in the former East Germany, the country’s reunification in 1990 and the subsequent currency union resulted in heavy financial losses for Leipzig, which impacted trade and industry in particular. The city struggled with high unemployment for many years as both the job market and real estate market floundered. Happily, however, those difficult times are now in the past. Unemployment has plunged by half since 2011, the real estate market has more than stabilised and the city has become a popular destination for innovation and startups. In numerous city rankings and economic trend lists that have come out in recent years, Leipzig has frequently placed near the top for quality of life and future economic prospects. The city is also a significant business centre, home to major operations for companies including BMW, Porsche and DHL.