12 great reasons
to choose Grenoble Alpes

Grenoble Alpes owes its economic strength to an exceptional concentration of both innovative SMEs and established industry leaders – all within a radius of 20km.

x Energy: EDF, Schneider Electric, GE Renewable Energy, Siemens, Verkor, Enedis, Engie, and more…
x Electronics / Digital Technologies: STMicroelectronics, SOITEC, Intel, Orange Labs, Apple, Huawei, Naver Labs Europe, Salesforce, TDK, CapGemini, Atos, HPE, Aledia, and more…
x Health: Medtronic, BD, Fresenius, Johnson & Johnson, Roche Diagnostics, Biomérieux, Trixell, and more…
x Sports & the outdoors: Go Sport, Rossignol, Petzl, and more…
x Chemistry and the environment: Vencorex, Arkema, Hexcel, Tredi, Areva, Artelia, and more…
x Mechanics & Metallurgy: ARaymond, Caterpillar, Poma, and more…
x Food processing: Yoplait, Teisseire, Chartreuse, and more…
x Others : Vicat, Calor, Serge Ferrari, Lafarge, and more…

* R&D makes up 7.4% of the workforce
** Clarivate Analytics / Reuters 2020

x 5 Major European research facilities: ILL (Institut Laue-Langevin), EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory), ESRF (European Synchrotron Radiation Facility), LNCMI (National Intense Magnetic Fields Laboratory), IRAM (Institute of Millimeter Radio Astronomy);
x Academic research centers that are among the most inventive in the world (CNRS, Institute of Neurosciences, CEA Tech, INRA, Inria, Inserm, Inrae, and more…);
x World-class private R&D centers (Orange Labs, Apple, Schneider Electric, Huawei, Atos, Air Liquide, Naver Labs Europe, STMicroelectronics, Soitec, GE Renewable Energy, BD, HPE, and more…);
x A global innovation campus: GIANT (Grenoble Innovation for Advanced New Technologies). 255 hectares (630 acres), 5,000 scientific publications and 600 patent applications/year;
x MIAI Grenoble Alpes: 1 of France’s 4 Multidisciplinary Artificial Intelligence Institutes.

* Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA) is among the world’s top 150 universities (2024 Shanghai Ranking), offering a wide choice of multidisciplinary and transversal programs. The university welcomes 59,000 students each year, with 42% pursuing degrees in a scientific field. These students promise to be the future talent of local companies, research labs and organizations.

* Grenoble, #3 European city in its category for its strategy for local economic appeal towards foreign investors (Financial Times)

Situated near Turin (Italy) and Geneva (Switzerland), Grenoble Alpes is ideally-located at the crossroads of Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Grenoble Alpes is located in France’s second strongest economic region, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. The region has 8 million inhabitants (the same population as Switzerland or Israel) and a GDP of €250B (equivalent to that of Finland). With over 22,000 companies, which represent 500,000 jobs, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes is the premier industrial region in France.

The infrastructure in and around Grenoble is well-developed and high-performing. This makes the city particularly accessible – an advantage for any company that wants to move to Grenoble.

Thanks to its 3 international airports (Lyon, Geneva & Grenoble) Grenoble Alpes is connected to all of Europe’s capitals, making its location, with regard to the rest of the continent, simply ideal.

** Equal to Toulouse or Bordeaux

With its exceptional resilience, Grenoble has had a major role in each of the 5 industrial waves of the past 150 years:

1. 19^th century – Gloves
2. End of 19^th century – hydroelectricity, paper mills & mechanics
3. End of the 1920s – electrometallurgy, electrochemistry, electric equipment
4. In the 1950s-60s – electromagnetism, nuclear & computer sciences
5. Today – micro & nanoelectronics, medtech/biotechnologies, biomechanics (and more generally intangible services), digital, artificial intelligence, the environment (chemistry, cleantech & smartcities)

Avant-garde in many domains

• 1788 – Vizille, birthplace of the French Revolution
• 19^th Century – Arts: Stendhal & Berlioz
• 1817 – Artificial cement (Vicat)
• 1822 – Champollion decodes hieroglyphics
• 1889 – Hydroelectricity (Aristide Bergès)
• 1947 – Cable transportation (Pomagalski)
• 1973 – Head lamp (Petzl)
• 1970 – Louis Néel
• 2015 – Deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s (Pr Benabid)
• 2019 – Artificial Intelligence (MIAI Grenoble Alpes)
• 2022 – Grenoble, European Green Capital

* Saint-Quentin-Fallavier (and near the Rhône, a multimodal industrial port called INSPIRA)

Invest in Grenoble Alpes provides support and advice for setting up your company in Grenoble Alpes. Our support is tailored to your needs, completely confidential and free of charge. We are there for each and every step of the process. For startups looking to set up in Grenoble Alpes, we offer a welcome package that includes 3 months of free coworking space.