Merkel calls for more aggressive technology funding

 "According to German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), research and innovation in Germany too often have to struggle with unnecessary obstacles - including cumbersome funding and control structures. In addition, Germany and Europe would have to secure more technological sovereignty in order to face the competition with America and China in order not to get into difficult dependencies, Merkel warned on Wednesday at the research summit in 2021 with representatives from companies and science.

"If we want to assert ourselves with our European social and economic models with our ideas of sustainability and a future worth living in, then we have to be more innovative, more productive than other parts of the world and in many ways also become faster," she warned. 

A very offensive technology funding in China and America, where the state directs "large amounts of money" into innovations, leads us to the conclusion: "We have to do that too." 

 Angela Merkel explained that she was concerned about the skeptical attitude of German car manufacturers to operating their own battery cell production for a long time. This is strategically important in order to be able to drive technological developments ourself. At the same time, it is also about sovereignty as protection against dependencies in the delivery relationships that are difficult to resolve in an emergency. 

With a view to the domestic innovation and funding landscape, Merkel positively highlighted the example of the new “Agency for Leap Innovations”, which is supposed to act more freely than ministries and authorities when using funding. Government agencies that would have to continuously prove to the Federal Audit Office that resources were used economically and effectively could not take too much of the risk. "Then it won't work," said Merkel and advised that the agency concept should be used more for research funding. 

She also advocated simpler control structures: Today, companies operating nationwide would have to deal with 17 data protection authorities and up to 51 ethics committees on the way to an innovation, reported Merkel. That too has to go faster, she demanded."