Science and Education

At the beginning of 2003, the world-famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology nominated Rolf Isermann of Darmstadt Technical University as one of the world’s "top ten" whose research work on new technologies will have a lasting impact on everyone’s living and working environments. Isermann is the father of mechatronics, the combination of mechanics and electronics in automotive manufacturing. Other new leading fields of research and technology in Germany are computer sciences (SAP), microsystems technology (Siemens) and the development of long-life, easily recyclable and less toxic materials. These new materials also make a substantial contribution towards modern environmental technology, which for decades has been a "traditional" area of German research. As became clear at the UN Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in autumn 2002, German advances, for example in wind power technology, lead the world.

The future of high technology is largely based on an interplay between three parties: between science, innovative companies and the state. The latter has the role of putting a legal framework for progress in place, based not least on clear ethics, and of supporting appropriate research and experimental developments at a precompetitive stage. A recent example of this in Germany is the establishment of a National Ethics Council. Its deliberations formed an important basis for an act adopted in summer 2002 on stem cells from human embryos. In Germany, human life is in principle inviolable from the day of conception. The importation of existing stem cell cultures, for example from Israel, is permissible only for highly significant health research (reconstructive neurobiology) and under strict conditions. In this way, Germany is keeping up with international research and preserving its opportunity to influence international agreements.

Research into technology provides more than 350,000 full-time jobs for highly-qualified people in Germany. Six out of every seven of them work for a company. The state supports the private research institutions with funding, but this funding amounts to less than one-tenth of the spending by firms. This rate is lower than in the US economy or in other European Union member states like Italy, France and Britain. Despite this, the state funding goes to a large variety of recipients. It benefits every sixth industrial company in Germany. The open secret behind this broad-based impact is research partnerships between academia and commerce (public-private partnerships).

The lion’s share of the approximately 16 billion euros of taxpayers’ money spent on research and technology each year goes to the universities and to other public institutions, i.e. particularly into basic research and promoting young researchers. Most of the higher education institutions are run by the respective Land (state). The German Research Foundation (DFG), a body set up by the scientific community, also supports university research with project funding from the Federal Government, for which the researchers compete. The other major pillars of basic research are the Max Planck Society (MPG) (the German Nobel prize production line), and the 15 large-scale research establishments of the Helmholtz Association like the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY). The Leibniz Association (WGL) consists of 79 loosely linked independent institutes of various disciplines, from the German Primates Centre (Aids research!) through to business research institutes, and 34 of these are located in eastern Germany. All three umbrella organisations depend largely on the Federal Government or on a combination of the Federal Government and the Länder. The Fraunhofer Society (FhG) has 57 institutes in Germany and supports research into specific applications; it endeavours to obtain two-thirds of its budget on the open market. For some years, there has also been co-operation between working groups of the various research organisations, e.g. from higher education institutions, the MPG and the FhG. Sometimes they form regional research clusters, e.g. around Göttingen University.

Research into technology accounts for 2.4 % of Germany’s gross domestic product. This is higher than the EU average of 2 %. In 2002, the EU set itself the goal of achieving the 3 % mark by 2010, and of becoming a world-wide technology leader, ahead of the United States and Japan. National technology policy must therefore adapt more towards international co-operation "within the EU research area", says Professor Frieder Meyer-Krahmer of the FhG. The European Space Agency (ESA) is pointing the way. At the same time, German researchers and taxpayers’ money are also involved in further-reaching projects, such as the International Space Station (ISS) involving sixteen states around the world. The planetary networking of science in Germany results not least from the grants issued by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Each year, these go to around 1500 top researchers – specialists both in technology and in other fields – from (almost) all countries of the world.