Posts Tagged R&D
BDI demands stronger research support for businesses
May 14th, 2012 | Thema: News
The Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie (BDI, or Federation of German Industry) is demanding stronger support for innovations in companies from the public authorities in Europe. The proportion of European research support for companies had fallen for years, according to the BDI. German industry therefore welcomed the target of the EU Commission to strengthen competitiveness in Europe with the new EU framework programme “Horizon 2020 Innovations in Europe”.
The Federation is linking this appeal with the publication of the BDI study “Germany 2030 – Future perspectives for value creation”. This comes to the conclusion that in the upcoming decades abrupt changes in the economic environment and particularly in new technologies and also the political framework will increase. BDI experts assume that companies will form alliances and cross sector cooperation agreements to co-design change through innovations. According to the BDI the “Horizon 2020” programme had to reverse the trend while European support for research is falling.
Engineers indispensable for German innovation sectors
April 30th, 2012 | Thema: News
Engineers drive innovation in Germany. This is the result of a survey by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW Köln) in cooperation with the Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (VDI, or Association of German Engineers). According to this survey the five sectors in Germany with the highest proportion of engineers among their employees produce innovations worth around 73 billion euros every year. This is equivalent to more than 60 per cent of the expenditure on innovations made by the entire economy. Merely 12 per cent of employees in Germany work in these sectors.
According to the study these five innovations sectors are technical services and services in research and development, the electrical industry, mechanical engineering, vehicle construction and IT/telecommunications. At 562 billion euros the companies in these five sectors generated around 45 per cent of all German export income from trade in goods and services in 2011. In addition, these branches of industry achieved a foreign trade surplus of 223 billion euros – 47 per cent more than the entire economy put together, because other sectors posted a foreign trade deficit. According to information from the VDI a total of 1.6 million engineers work in Germany’s companies.
Experts demand higher R&D investments in Germany
March 12th, 2012 | Thema: News
The Expertenkommission Forschung und Innovation (EFI, or Commission of Experts Research and Development), which was set up by the German government, is calling for a consistent development of science intensive industries and services in Germany in its 2012 annual report. In 2010 the proportion of expenditure on research and development (R&D) in Germany was 2.82 per cent of gross domestic product and thus 2010 reached a new high. With expenditure of 69.7 billion euros, of which 46.9 billion came from business, the German economy increased its investments in R&D by 4.3 per cent on the previous year. Nevertheless, the members of the committee were only partially satisfied with these results. In the face of increasing competition, including from developing countries, the experts describe the target set by the government of three per cent of gross domestic product for R&D expenditure by 2015 as “lacking ambition“. Other countries such as Finland, Sweden, Japan and Korea had already left this target level well behind them.
Around 80 per cent of SMEs involved in innovations
February 27th, 2012 | Thema: News
Small and medium sized enterprises (SME) in Germany are more heavily involved in innovation activities than had previously been assumed. This has been pointed out by the Institut für Mittelstandsforschung (IfM, or Institute of Mittelstand Research), which has evaluated current figures from the EU statistics authority (Eurostat) and the 2011 innovation survey from the Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW, or Centre for European Economic Research). Accordingly around 80 per cent of SMEs are integrated in innovation processes.
Admittedly, according to the results only around six per cent of SMEs create original technical innovations, as reflected in patent registrations and registered copyrights. However, if non-technical process and organisational innovations are also taken into account the creativity of SMEs becomes clear. Then the proportion of companies that realise innovations reaches 80 per cent. 78 per cent of companies with 10 to 49 employees and 84 per cent of companies with 50 to 249 employees are involved in the innovation process. In comparison: the proportion of large companies is 95 per cent.
R&D investments in Germany continue to grow
December 12th, 2011 | Thema: News
In 2010 German business spent a total of 46.93 billion euros on internal research and development – 3.7 per cent more than in 2009. These figures were reported by the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft in its current survey. Thus the proportion of business research investment as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) remained at practically the same level as the previous year at 1.89 per cent. Together with state expenditure on R&D the proportion amounted to an estimated 2.82 per cent. According to the latest planning data companies in Germany invested around 49.34 billion euros in 2011; the Stifterverband is even forecasting 49.9 billion euros in 2012.
In contrast, the R&D proportion for the whole European Union was only at an estimated 1.9 per cent in 2010. Thus the EU states missed the target they had set themselves of spending at least three per cent of gross domestic product on R&D investments by a long way. However, the President of the Stifterverband der Wissenschaft, Arend Oetker, assessed developments in Germany positively. The ambitious target induced the German government significantly to increase its research spending. According to the report, the financing share of the state in comparison with business grew noticeably for the first time in 15 years from 2008.