Greece’s Deputy Minister of Development and Investment Christos Dimas attended the first National Awards for Young Entrepreneurs over the weekend, declaring that the Life Sciences are the leading fields of activity in the Greek innovation ecosystem.
Specifically, life sciences are in first place with 14.1%, followed by tourism with 9.1%, environment with 9.1%, agro-technology with 7.1%, advertising 7%, big data (6%), financial technology (5%), manufacturing (4.3%), e-commerce (4%), shipping and human resources (3% each), entertainment (2.3%), education ( 2%) and other sectors (24%).
Employment numbers
The Minister added that in terms employment numbers in the innovation ecosystem and especially in start-ups, the life sciences again dominate with 11%, advertising with 8.3%, e-commerce with 7.4%, big data with 7% and tourism with 6.4%. They are followed by shipping with 4.8%, entertainment with 4.4%, agricultural technology, environment and education with 4.3% each sector, financial technology with 4.1%, manufacturing with 2.2% human resources with 2.1% and finally all other sectors with 29.4%.
"From the data we can safely conclude that the life sciences dominate the Greek innovation ecosystem and this is something we want to support.
“We all knew it, we all suspected it, but it is now confirmed in the official data," the deputy minister stressed.
Innovation by region
Particularly revealing are the number of start-ups per administrative region in the country. As the Deputy Minister went on to explain the aggregate data for the 13 administrative regions of the country show that:
- 2 out of 3 start-ups are located in the Attica Region.
- The region of Central Macedonia follows with 14.7%.
- Crete with 6.5%.
- And Western Greece with 4.2%.
Mr. Dimas explained that the government’s ambition is to create more start-ups outside large urban centres, in regional areas of the country.
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