Jerry Krattiger has been the Managing Director of the Fribourg Development Agency (FDA) since June 2019. At the age of 50, he can already look back on a varied and rich career that has included project management roles in the financial and insurance sectors, the creation of his own IT company, Operational Director of a non-profit association, as well as multiple economic development related assignments and his duties as a non-tenured associated professor at several Swiss higher education institutions. Proficient in five languages and an expert in business administration, the FDA Director, who is originally from Fribourg but living in Bern, has acquired deep and wide-ranging entrepreneurial experience and has a proven track record when it comes to people management and forging solid working relationships with local, national and international partners

Given that you are not living in Fribourg, what struck you about the canton when you took over the reins at the FDA?

First of all, I was positively surprised by the ability of the canton to overcome difficulties and to turn setbacks into opportunities. When a number of companies moved their operations out of Fribourg during the first half of the 2010s, the cantonal government reacted with a determined and ambitious strategy that saw it acquiring several industrial sites which it planned to transform into sectoral development hubs. A good example is blueFACTORY, the innovation quarter in downtown Fribourg located on the former site of the Cardinal brewery. Today, it is home to a top-flight research and development center for the built environment of the future, as well as a number of other centers of expertise and several dozen start-ups and innovative SMEs. Other examples include the innovation centers AgriCo in Saint-Aubin, which focuses on agrifood and biomass, and La Maillarde in Romont, which is particularly well-suited to biotech firms. It is very encouraging to see a real willingness on the part of the canton’s policy makers to take brave decisions, free up the resources needed to see these through to the end, and create additional value into the bargain.

During the early months of your tenure, you have met many Fribourg companies. What did you take away from these meetings?

It is important to listen to local businesses, no matter their size – from start-ups and SMEs to major international concerns. We cannot effectively help them to succeed if you do not fully understand what they need. I am very impressed with how well research and industry work together. It seems like the ties between academia and business are already quite strong in Fribourg. Of course, there is still room for improvement and we should continue to step up our efforts in this regard. How? By better aligning research with industry needs. While living in the United States, I absorbed the pragmatic approach the country takes toward the innovation ecosystem, whereby every actor involved must do whatever they can to ensure that the technology they develop is channeled into the economy. Many academic circles, both in Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe, need to adopt a more entrepreneurial approach if they are to successfully commercialize their innovations. As FDA director, I want this to become an automatic reflex, which will in turn boost the canton’s economic base.

Are the right conditions already in place?

Yes. Fribourg has a dynamic university, excellent universities of applied sciences and a legion of top-flight centers of expertise and research institutes. The canton is well above the national average when it comes to the number of patent filings per capita. Fribourg has other advantages too, such as a young, well-educated population, the fact that it straddles German- and French-speaking Switzerland, not to mention the exceptional quality of life it offers. We also have effective support and funding instruments for innovative industry-research projects, courtesy of the New Regional Policy program and Innosuisse (Swiss Innovation Agency). All the right ingredients are there, and as this issue of Fribourg Network Freiburg shows, many successful partnerships have been built already.

Is Fribourg’s future looking bright?

I hope so! In any case, the energy that the cantonal government and the private sector have invested in developing innovation hubs over the last 10 years has made it possible to expand the reach of Fribourg’s economic development activities. Our focus has widened to include strategic sectors like the bioeconomy and Industry 4.0, including high potential, high value-added niches such as human health, polymers, biopharmaceuticals, smart living, and even digital printing.