Technology policy
New technologies and dynamic cycles of innovation are changing the world with breathtaking speed. Yesterday's futuristic visions quickly become today's everyday normality, and then are just as quickly rendered obsolete by even newer developments. These ever more rapid processes of change make investment in research, innovation and skills indispensable for maintaining and enhancing the competitiveness of our companies. Dynamic levels of innovation will ensure long-term growth, prosperity and new jobs.
Innovation is driven on the one hand by new technologies and services. On the other hand, social changes and global challenges such as climate change, demographic shifts, and dwindling fossil fuel supplies demand innovative, sustainable solutions.
These challenges - and finding solutions to them - are the core priorities of the German government's High-Tech Strategy 2020. This strategy aims to take effective action in five main areas that possess particular urgency and social relevance:
- health and nutrition,
- energy and climate protection,
- security,
- mobility, and
- communications.
In addition, research in key technologies (such as nanotechnology, information technology and space technology) is being increasingly targeted toward the identification of solutions in these policy areas.
During the current legislative period, the German government is continuing to set policies that point the way toward the future. For example, 12 billion euros in additional funding have been allocated for investments in education, research and innovation (half of this total specifically targets research and innovation). In this way, we have taken a major step toward our ambitious target of spending at least 10% of German GDP on education and research by 2015.
The Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology supports German companies by working continuously to create an innovation-friendly policy environment and by promoting market-oriented research, development and innovation projects.
Our new Technology Campaign provides fresh impetus for maintaining and enhancing the technological prowess of German companies in the future.
To this end, the Economics Ministry is taking steps to:
- further improve the policy framework for research and innovation,
- sustainably enhance the research and innovation capacity of small and medium-sized companies, and
- target the development of key technologies toward the most pressing challenges of the future.
The Ministry's technology policy budget will be topped up steadily over the next several years, rising from 2.6 billion euros in 2011 to roughly 3 billion euros in 2014. This means that the Ministry's technology funding has nearly doubled over the past 10 years.
The Technology Campaign complements the Ministry's intensified activities in key areas of SME policy and industrial policy, including measures to promote foreign trade and investment, to secure raw materials supplies and to recruit skilled workers.
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