Survey assesses science policy of Germany's political parties
A survey of science policy in the major political parties in Germany has found a consensus on the need to intensify cooperation between public and industrial research institutions and to promote competition between research laboratories. With Germany's general election taking place in September, Euroscience decided to conduct the study as science policy has only played a minor role in the election campaigns of the German political parties. Seeking to explain the loss in attractiveness of scientific careers in Germany, the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which is currently governing the country in coalition with the Green party, regards the lack of compatibility between research jobs and the family as problematic. The difficulty in finding a permanent position also discourages people from embarking upon a scientific career, the SDP believes. The Green Party would like to facilitate the creation of a performance related salary system for science by a new collective labour agreement for public science institutions. The party would also like to tackle administrative obstacles to international mobility of scientists, which it sees as a major problem for the development of research excellence. The Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) reject the government's claim that R&D spending has been significantly increased over the last legislative period, and argue that only industry has increased its R&D investments. All parties wish to increase the speed and quality of identification of key innovations and technologies with the help of improved monitoring and forecast studies so as to be able to promote them faster. The Green Party, the SDP and the Free Democratic Party also support periodical internal and external evaluations as a method to promote research efficiency. In 2000, the German government invested 8.4 billion euro in R&D. Investment by industry was much higher at 41.4 billion euro.
Countries
Germany