The Greater Zurich region won the judges’ vote for human resources on the strength of its excellent universities, research institutes and technoparks. These include the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, the University of Zurich, the University of St Gallen, 15 technoparks and research institutes, such as IBM’s Zurich Research Laboratory, Dow Europe’s Research Laboratories, the Paul Scherrer Institute and many others.

Meanwhile, the German regions of Brandenburg and Baden-Württemberg offer some of the best-educated populations in Europe with more than 30% of the adult population holding university degrees.