Herausforderung für die Forschungs- und Technologiepolitik - Wirtschaftsnahe Forschungs-Infrastruktur Deutschlands im Transformationsprozeß

The industrially oriented R&D infrastructure in a merging Germany and Europe needs to be re-shaped structurally and in terms of its capacity. In East Germany this infrastructure nearly completely lost its clients during the radical economic transformation process; during the early 1990s it was completely re-structured and partly dissolved. The sharp downswing in the world economy, which in 1992 also hit West German industry, lead also to a reduced capacity utilization of the West German industrially oriented research. A diminishing demand is confronted today by a relatively large supplier potential for industrially oriented research from all Germany, despite the reduction in East Germany, for which industrial contracts are missing. In addition, there is a structural problem: both research systems have similar strengths and weaknesses; predatory competition is taking place today, whereby the East German suppliers have much worse starting conditions.