International Day of Investor Days Thuringia - Internationalization as the key to innovation

How can successful internationalization succeed in a networked world? This question was the focus of the International Day 2026 as part of the Investor Days Thuringia.

The key finding: international cooperation is a decisive driver for innovation, growth and market access. Specific examples from Thuringia were used to show how companies can strengthen their innovative power and open up new markets through global networks.

The International Day not only offered exciting insights and best practices, but above all space for exchange and networking between business, research and innovation promotion.

One impulse in terms of content was provided by Melanie HoffmannInnovation scout of the LEG Thuringia and representative of the German-Israeli Chamber of Commerce Abroad. In her talk, she showed which success factors characterize the Israeli startup ecosystem and which approaches can be derived from this for the internationalization of Thuringian players.

The program was supplemented by a practical workshop with Daniel Feldkamp from LEG Thüringen’s foreign representative office in the USA, who presented strategies for the early internationalization of start-ups and showed concrete ways to enter international markets.

Practical insights were also provided by Thuringian institutions such as TITK e.V. and TITV Greizwhich GFE Schmalkalden and OptoNet e.V. They reported on their experiences in international development collaborations with start-ups and showed how collaboration with global innovation ecosystems can be shaped in concrete terms. The examples presented illustrated how international partnerships are used in a targeted manner to drive innovation and enable technology transfer.