Old and new markets with great growth potential

The High-Tech Strategy has provided particular impetus to information and communication technologies (ICT). ICT penetrate an increasingly large number of fields of work and life in our society. They are the basis for new multimedia applications and services in industry (e-business, e-commerce) and public administration (e-government), in health (e-health), transport and private life. Information and communication technologies hold great economic potential. At the same time, they drive growth in many other industries.

According to an evaluation by the European Information Technology Observatory (EITO), the ICT market grew by 6.3 percent worldwide between 2006 and 2007. It is becoming increasingly bigger above all in the emerging countries India and China. 800,000 employees in Germany account for a turnover of about 145 billion euros. The industry association BITKOM assumes that the previous year's level can be maintained in spite of the insecure economic situation. The industry accounts for about six percent of GDP on an EU average. In Europe, ICT contributes with 40 percent to productivity growth.

Information and communication technologies drive innovations

Under the title of "ICT 2020 - Research for Innovations", the Federal Government implements its High-Tech Strategy in the field of information and communication technologies. The programme of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) was presented on the occasion of CeBIT 2007. Research funding - a total of 1.5 billion euros over five years - is oriented to fields of application which are strong in Germany and in which innovations are to a large extent driven by ICT. Besides ICT, these fields include primarily automotive engineering, mechanical engineering, medicine, logistics and energy. ICT thus provides for greater safety in road traffic, less fuel consumption, resource-conserving transport of goods, modern medicine and ambient assisted living (AAL). In the automotive industry, logistics and medical technology, over 80 percent of innovations today are driven by ICT. Funding is focused on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), above all with the open topic "SME innovation campaign Information and Communication Technologies" and with "Innovative SMEs: ICT". 878 applications for funding had been submitted for the latter by the end of 2008, 460 of the SMEs participated for the first time in funding programmes.

The "Information Society Germany 2010" (iD2010) action programme coordinates draft bills and funding programmes, to ensure that the information society can develop further. Besides improving legal framework conditions (among others: Telecommunication Amendment Act and Telecommunication Regulation, TeleMedia Act, digital intellectual property so-called second basket), technology funding by the government departments is pooled. Further priorities are initiatives for promoting broadband and digitalizing the media, the e-commerce network and nationwide electronic administrative services. This includes the electronic health card and efforts to increase ICT security. As part of the Federal Government's e-government programme, research on an electronic ID card, secure De-mail communication, the central "115" citizen service hotline, the EC Service Directive, electronic citizen participation and digital integration of the population via e-government were conducted in 2008, among others.

New innovation alliances and strategic partnerships in the field of ICT bring together science and industry and generate lead markets:

Innovation Alliance/
Strategic Partnership		 Content
Digital product memory

SemProM
 Intelligent products: The aim is to develop the next generation of mobile, embedded and radio-based elements for Internet communication between everyday objects and their environment. This makes an important contribution to the Internet of Things.
Applied virtual technologies,
AVILUS
 Virtual and augmented reality: The aim is to develop efficient technologies in the context of virtual and augmented reality. Applications will lie in the field of vehicle development and production, in services and in the field of education and training.
THESEUS Internet of Services: The aim is to create an Internet-based knowledge infrastructure which enables Internet users to easily access global knowledge. The rapidly growing amount of information in all fields thus becomes effectively accessible to users.
Transport services for the Internet of the future  - 100 GET Data transfer: The aim of this European innovation alliance is a definition of basic technical standards, together with partners in Finland, France, Sweden and Spain, so that the Internet will be able to cope with the enormous increase in data transfer in future.
BioIndustry 2021 Resource-conserving production processes: Clusters of companies, universities, research institutions, financial services providers inter alia for the implementation of biotechnology processes in industrial production processes, for example in the chemical and pharmaceuticals industries.

 

  • "IKT 2020" - Research for Innovation

    Information and communication technologies (ICT) are the No. 1 innovation motor. ICT drives more than 80 per cent of innovations in Germany's strong application fields and branches automotive, medical technology and logistics. The German Federal Government's High-tech Strategy therefore puts ICT among the most important areas of innovation.
    more (URL: http://www.bmbf.de/de/9069.php)

  • Germany: building the information society

    Information and communication technologies are now an integral part of our everyday life as well as the driving force behind higher productivity, growth and employment.
    more (URL: http://www.bmwi.de/English/Navigation/Technology-policy/the-information-society,did=79428.html)