Where is innovation policy currently headed? And what is the role of project-based funding structures in these developments?
These are two of the questions that Prof. Sebastian Pfotenhauer addressed in his keynote at the 50th Anniversary Celebrations of one of Germany’s leading project management organizations, Projektträger Jülich (PtJ). In the words of PtJ president, Stephanie Bauer, PtJ was born the same year the first VW Golf generation was delivered, and has since been a central part of the backbone of the German research and innovation landscape.
In his address, Prof. Pfotenhauer analyzed how the modern “social contract for science and innovation” is changing and how it is caught between contradictory “more state” and “less state” logics of innovation, embodied by different innovation ideals of “mission-driven” innovation or Silicon Valley-type entrepreneurship.
He also discussed how the recent German state elections interact with regional economic and innovation policies such as the siting choices for semiconductor fab labs.