 Like almost no other German city, Dortmund, the biggest city in the Ruhr Valley, has seen enormous change in recent years, becoming a modern and cosmopolitan metropolis, renown all across Europe for technological development.
One of the triggers for Dortmund’s metamorphosis was the Dortmund-project, a local initiative started in 2000 with the goal of furthering structural change from within. The Dortmund-project is pooling the strengths of city, economy and science creating a network for new businesses and technology-oriented enterprises. The initiative „start2grow“, for instance, which supports founders in realizing their plans for new business ideas, has found a competent partner in the Dortmund-project.
But the former “steel city” can also play trump cards in other sectors. The insurance industry is represented with three important companies, and so is the finance sector with 45 banks and 5,500 employees. One of the city’s major advantages are its excellent transport links: the Dortmund airport, the third-biggest Intercity nodal point in Germany, a highway ring around the city and the biggest European canal port make Dortmund easily accessible from every direction.
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