Dr. Petra PüchnerCommissioner for Europe of the Minister of Economic Affairs, Labour and Tourism Baden-Württemberg

Since January 2018, Dr. Petra Püchner has been the Commissioner for Europe of the Minister of Economic Affairs, Labour and Tourism of the State of Baden-Württemberg. At the same time, she heads the Steinbeis Innovation Center 'Steinbeis IDEA Europe' of Steinbeis Innovation gGmbH, which is financially supported by the Ministry.

The focus of her activities is on strengthening the innovative power of Baden-Württemberg's economy, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, the so-called ‘Mittelstand’. This includes, above all, making greater use of European research and innovation capacities and initiatives. She thereby builds a bridge between innovation activities in Baden-Württemberg and the goals and implementation initiatives of the European institutions, especially for the benefit of companies. It is also important to establish a broader network of innovation regions in Europe, the so-called innovation ecosystems, in order to jointly have more influence on e.g. European regulations.

Petra Püchner has been a member of Steinbeis Europa Zentrum management team for 25 years and founded Steinbeis 2i GmbH together with Dr. Jonathan Loeffler in 2016. For many years now, she has been an active member of various expert groups on innovation in SMEs of the European Commission, the state and the federal government, and acts as a member of the speaker group of the German Enterprise Europe Network (EEN). Thereby, she also contributes to shaping European cooperation with a special focus on SMEs. Her expertise covers all areas of research and innovation policy, innovation management for SMEs, open innovation, key enabling technologies and transnational technology transfer. In 2012, as part of the 'KIC InnoEnergy', she founded the network 'Women4Energy' ("European Network of Women for Innovative Energy Solutions), which connects women from research and industry internationally on all energy-related topics.