Regular tasks
The central tasks of this research area include the periodic collection and processing of data and facts specific to start-ups and company size. In 2021, IfM Bonn supplemented its extensive reporting on start-up activities with a detailed regional component and designed a comprehensive regional database for this purpose. The regional database is to be continued, i.e., it will be supplemented with further characteristics of regional start-up ecosystems and will provide data for additional years to come. This is a prerequisite for short-term, detailed regional analyses of start-up activities and ecosystems.
In addition to updating sector statistics (e.g., on foreign trade and innovation activities, R&D, and insolvencies), key figures on small and medium-sized enterprises (e.g., number of companies, employees, and apprentices), sectoral data (e.g., number of family businesses), and regional data (New Entrepreneurial Initiative: NUI indicator) are calculated regularly. In addition, IfM Bonn maintains statistics with international comparative data on SMEs, reporting also on their current status of digitisation. Furthermore, selected results from the microcensus (e.g., development of the self-employment rate) are processed and interpreted, and data on self-employed persons in the liberal professions is prepared. Since 2025, IfM Bonn provides a data pool on women as entrepreneurs and founders to its founders for their specific information purposes.
IfM Bonn’s data supply is supplemented by a quarterly analysis of the SAFE data set ("SME Barometer") and semi-annual short surveys on current topics/challenges. In order to identify topics relevant to SMEs at an early stage, the IfM has started in 2025 to use a specific foresight tool developed in-house and will publish a short report on the main results for the first time in autumn 2025. In future, the report is scheduled to be published twice a year.