Full steam ahead - The individual innovation strategies
Innovation policy is more than just research policy. Many conditions have to be right in order for new ideas from science and research to be able to develop their potential for benefiting mankind:
Science and industry have to be brought together in application-oriented projects. Entrepreneurs are dependent on venture capital. Quality standards can strengthen consumers' confidence in innovative products. And fast-growing sectors need sufficient numbers of young skilled workers. Which is why the German government is using its High-Tech Strategy to bring R&D funding and efforts to shape the general parameters for innovation together in one comprehensive innovation policy. All decisions being taken across a very broad range of policy fields will be examined to determine their implications for research and innovation conditions in Germany.
Aiming to forge links between research and emerging, cutting-edge markets, the government is developing 'prototypal' innovation strategies for 17 high-tech sectors: Nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, optical technologies, microtechnologies and information and communications technologies are considered driving technologies the world over - technologies that enable a wide variety of applications and are transforming a wealth of economic sectors. Mastery of these technologies is of vital importance for a high-tech country. However, for an export-oriented country such as Germany, it is even more important that these enabling technologies be integrated into fields of application such as automotive or mechanical engineering - which provide the basis for Germany's economic strength - or environmental or energy technology which are needed for solving urgent problems of the future. The German government wants to expand Germany's strength as a provider of systems technologies.
Using a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis of Germany as its point of departure, the federal government will develop specific measures for each high-tech sector for the next several years. These measures will all include the following essential elements:
- R&D funding in thematic programmes,
- The establishment of innovation-friendly conditions and
- Agreement between science, industry and the political sector on connected strategies.
The German government's thematic R&D funding programmes are particularly suited to responding flexibly and quickly to new technology trends and to linking science and industry. Providing funding for collaborative projects in which companies and research institutes work together has particularly proven its worth. Such projects are geared to application and incorporate all necessary partners into the innovation and value-added chain. Collaborative projects offer special advantages for SMEs in particular: On the one hand, they bring SMEs into direct contact with excellent research institutes. On the other hand, the participation of large corporations in these research alliances gives participating SMEs access to global markets and the chance to do business as a supplier.
- Suitable, thematic R&D funding programmes are to be organised in the future as framework programmes with a timeframe of up to ten years. This will give them the necessary staying power for pursuing longer-term strategies and promising technological trends.
- These framework programmes will be developed on a joint basis with the active participation of representatives from industry, science and the political sector. Working together, science and industry will draft roadmaps for technological advances in suitable areas. This will be done to co-ordinate the activities being pursued in the respective field.
- Specialised programmes will be brought together and organised to be more transparent. This will inject greater transparency into the competition over funding resources.
- The new funding programmes for information and communications technologies and for security research will follow this new concept on a pilot basis.
- This means that research policy will play an even larger role as moderator in the innovation process. In the process, it will provide impetus for shaping and organising framework conditions to reflect the needs of innovation work.
The German government will continue to develop its sectoral innovation strategies in the course of a dialogue with science and industry. The newly created Industry-Science Research Alliance will be in charge of this task (please see Section IV).
These technology-specific strategies and measures will augment the German government's non-technology-specific activities such as the cross-technology research funding programmes for SMEs, the environmental innovation programme under the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, the High-Tech Gründerfonds fund for high-tech start-ups and the SME programmes conducted by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology.
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Today, digital photography, scanners at store check-out counters, music on CDs, optical biochips for new medicines and lasers for material processing are a regular part of everyday life in industrial societies. This list does not however cover the entire potential offered by optical and photonics technologies: Bold visions such as televisions that are made of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and can be applied to walls like wallpaper, or computers that use light to process data are inspiring developers working in research laboratories.
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Some 70 percent of all technical innovations hinge directly or indirectly on the properties of the materials they use. Material innovations can be used in practically all technology sectors and branches of industry: Starting with nanostructured - and therefore particularly scratchproof - paints in the automobile industry and extending to high-temperature-resistant metal alloys which increase the efficiency and lifespan of power plants, all the way to particularly light and tough fibre-reinforced plastics for use in, for instance, the new Airbus A 380.
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