Episode 26: (Re-)Searching for New Ideas – Germany’s Unique R&D Landscape

R&D in Germany has a long tradition. Its prestigious research institutes are known across the world. And no other European country invests more money in research and development – around 130 billion euros across all sectors in the last year for which figures are available. But part of Germany’s strength is its relatively decentralized, bottom-up orientation. A leader from Germany’s Ministry of Education and Research and a neurologist turned entrepreneur explain what makes R&D in Germany so special.

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Our Guests

Thomas Fritz | © Thomas Fritz

Professor Thomas Fritz leads the research group “Music Evoked Brain Plasticity“ at the Department of Neurology at the Max Planck Society. His research led him to the foundation of Jimmyn – a start-up based on a software that enables the conversion of bodily movements into music.

Armin Reinartz, BMBF | © Armin Reinartz, BMBF

Armin Reinartz is Head of the Directorate-General “European and International Cooperation” at the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

Transcript of this episode

[Jymmin music]

Presenter:
Welcome to the dance floor! What sounds like a night out at the club is actually exercise and perhaps rehabilitation. The music is created by bodily movements – stepping, swinging, boxing. So what’s this all about? Well, it started with a research project at one of the Max Planck Institutes. And that’ brings us to this month's topic: Research and development, made in Germany.
Welcome to INTO Germany, the German business podcast, brought to you by the international business promotion agency Germany Trade and Invest. I’m your host Kelly O’Brien. 
When we ask our guests on the podcast what makes Germany stand out as a business location, almost all of them say: the country’s R&D landscape.

Prof. Thomas Fritz, Jymmin
Germany, it's got a great research tradition, and I think we have a great research environment where we also search, you know, the dialog with people, with other concepts and try to find a profound type of evidence. And I think that's a very beautiful thing and maybe it's partly because of our tradition and therefore also these research societies mediating these traditions into the future and which is why we have such a such a good basis for research here.

Presenter:
That was Professor Tom Fritz, the brains behind the musical research project we just heard. The list of inventions and discoveries made at German research institutes is long – and many lead to concrete business ideas: From batteries with innovative contact foils that reduce production costs of electric cars, to “contact lenses” for the ears enabling a much broader sound spectrum than conventional hearing aids. No wonder, then, that the German government invests a lot of money in research infrastructure. In 2023, the budget was around 130 billion euros.

Armin Reinarzt, BMBF
So in total, Germany’s annual expenditure for R&D is already well above the EU-goal of 3 percent of the GDP. That is more than in most other large economies worldwide.

Presenter: 
That’s Armin Reinartz. He’s Head of the Directorate-General “European and international cooperation” at the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. We’ll talk to him later in depth, but first – let’s have some more music.

[Jymmin music]

Presenter:
Five years ago, Professor Tom Fritz of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences made the leap into the world of business and founded his company Jymmin. Welcome Tom, many thanks for joining us on the podcast. The research group you lead from which Jymmin emerged, is officially called „Music Evoked Brain Plasticity“. Sounds like heady stuff. Can you explain how this relates to the music project and the start up you founded?

Dr. Thomas Fritz, Jymmin
The initial idea came out of a music technological fields project that I was doing. At that time, I was doing neuroscience of music perception. So I was looking at differences in the auditory pathway, when you like or when you dislike music and I wanted to get additional information about this in an intercultural scenario where I visited the Marfa in northern Cameroon in a quite isolated area between the Nigeria and the Tschad. So people there, they practice their very archaic type of music performance. And this combined a physical exertion through a type of hyperventilation and flute playing where you had only minimal musical expression. And this was fascinating because people obviously used this to very systematically get high with music. And when I came back from this music ethnological studies, I wanted to recreate this in a safe level environment. And that was also a time when I had another occasion. So I had the opportunity to be part of an arts and science exhibition in the Hygiene Museum in Dresden. They are quite well known for their exhibitions, combining arts and science. And in this scenario, I then created an installation where we had people perform music together on fitness machines controlled by fitness machines. And that was the start of many of this whole research endeavor, where then for 15 years I had been doing experiments and optimizing this application in experimental scenarios.

Presenter:
We’ve all been there: it’s much more fun to exercise while listening to music. Your technology makes that effect circular, is that right?

Dr. Thomas Fritz, Jymmin
So when you're running to music, let me give that as an example, and you're synchronizing with the beat of the music. What it allows you is it allows you for an illusion that you, you know, when you stomp down with your foot in a way, usually with bone conduction, it will do. Tak, tak, tak. Yeah. But when you then stomp down on where the beat is in the music, it will do boom, chuck-attack, bam, bam. That means you can indulge in the illusion that you have this musical superpower. And this has a fascinating effect. So we always take, you know, just passive music listening as a control condition. And we see that if you're actually really in control of which we see much, much stronger effects of the music and this is super relevant both for the patients, but also in fitness. So to anyone who really tries something very hard, we see this positive interaction effect.

Presenter:
You were mentioning patients - so it’s not just about fun and lifestyle?

Dr. Thomas Fritz, Jymmin
We've arrived at optimizing the effects of music in rehabilitation and fitness in various ways. And this has become very relevant for certain patients. So this is also what’s for me such a big motivator in this is that, you know, I get such a lot of very good feedback from the patients who even after quite dramatic, for example, brain functionality decline, you know, they reach their happy place with this music feedback. And we know from all types of rehabilitation that engaging people in physical exertion is enormously good for participants because it also leads to increased brain plasticity through the metabolites that are created.

Presenter:
Five years ago, you founded Jymmin. When did you think: Hey, my research results could be used to create a business?

Dr. Thomas Fritz, Jymmin
So this initial experience in the museum, we had 15,000 people visit it in six weeks and people were really a lot crazy about it. And then we had a lot of bouncing it with the public, at days of the open doors etc., and it became clear: Yeah, this is something people really want to use. They really want to have this. Also, with my first publication, it was a what we call a high ranking publication, so it was a PNAS publication.

Presenter:
You’re talking about the journal of the National Academy of Sciences, the flagship peer-reviewed journal in the fields of biological, physical, and social sciences.

Dr. Thomas Fritz, Jymmin
And so that made it onto a lot of newspapers. I mean, it was all through to the New York Times on the paper front page, of course only a very small paragraph, but nonetheless, all of a sudden people were approaching us, were saying: Hey, we really would like to try this out. And that was the moment where we realized, you know, actually, you know, this it's quite a nerdy set up thus far. So we really, you know, need to make this less complicated. And we created a startup together with the Max Planck Society and began developing this also as a product. We have some B2B business where this is becoming available with fitness machines, but also with rehabilitation machines. But we're also bringing out, at least explore actively, an app where you can do some application, you know, where you can try this out yourself on your own telephone.

Presenter: 
Before we talk about this transfer from research to business – could you briefly explain how a Max Planck Institute is organized?

Dr. Thomas Fritz, Jymmin
So the Max Planck Institute has different departments. And then usually within the departments, you may have research groups that then are onto a certain topic in this field specialized like my research group is focused on music evoked brain plasticity. And so it's on my agenda that I create new types of interventions to help patients, for example. But there's also what we call independent research groups that are accepted through an application process. Our Max Planck Institute also has this a little bit of a special program that we do with other universities and also with other Max Planck institutes together where, for example, certain Ph.D. students, they can also rotate between labs and between different institutes in different countries. So, you know, a lot of effort is done about this, helping people to get a lot of experiences and to help them shape their own research ideas.

Presenter:
How did you experience the transformation from researcher to entrepreneur?

Dr. Thomas Fritz, Jymmin
I have to say, at the beginning it was nice when it was still this half born baby and I could develop a lot out of my research lab like I had like a technician here, a programmer there, etc., and I could develop it for the research. And then there was a great transfer to creating a company from there. All of a sudden it has to stand on its own feet and it has to pay for its own patented ideas. It's a different type of scenario that also creates a different type of pressure because you really have to make it work and you have to make it a success. Else, the money will run short and you can't pay for your own patents for your own inventions. So we were very good on the science side of things. And then making it the business side of things, you have to work with people who really know their trade. And so we are now in an extremely good position where we have a fantastic technology and a team to develop the technology with.

Presenter:
Do you still receive support from the Max Planck Society, the umbrella organization of the Max Planck institutes?

Dr. Thomas Fritz, Jymmin
So this is quite strictly split such that we do research and for the research we can also use new developments that have been done at the Jymmin GmbH. But there's no more support from the institute to the GmbH. The GmbH has to be able to stand on its feet completely. But nonetheless, there is quite a synergy also between the technical developments and much of the experimental set ups. For example, when the Max Planck lab, it publishes a new paper, for example, showing that this is relevant to people with Alzheimer's disease and it can increase their cognitive capability after only five days of training, these are then of course, also scenarios that make a product for at least certain people appear more, you know, relevant and attractive.

Presenter:
GmbH is German for incorporated company. So despite the financial and economic independence, there are still synergies that you can use?

Dr. Thomas Fritz, Jymmin
Of course there was a great synergy there between the company and the research lab because the research lab, they wanted to urgently use the technology to create the best effects for the patients and the company basically has now a range of clinical studies that a company could not possibly pay for if you were to engage all these scientists. And so that was a huge benefit, huge synergy. But yeah, I mean, with respect to also the patenting. You know, this patenting is an enormously expensive process. So we have these two patent families. And to create this in the first place, that would not have been possible without the Max Planck Society. So I think this is really extremely helpful if you have a big institution that also has an interest in creating intellectual property there.

Presenter:
You have been with your institute and the Max Planck Society for more than two decades. How do you experience the R&D landscape in Germany?

Dr. Thomas Fritz, Jymmin
It's got a great research tradition, and I think we have a great research environment where we also search a dialog with people with other concepts and try to find a profound type of evidence. And I think that's a very beautiful thing, because of our tradition and therefore also these research societies mediating these traditions into the future and which is why we have such a such a good basis for research here. But certainly bringing this into society, there's so much we can still learn.

Presenter:
Finally, Tom, what would you like to see in the future?

Dr. Thomas Fritz, Jymmin
I think this transition from research to creating a business, this needs to be further encouraged because I do think that from the research that we do in Germany, in Europe, this is a great potential. And it's not enough to only… I mean to only, it's so crass to create a patent or a patent family. But to help beyond that, to help it that it reaches society and can shape society. I think it's good if this is something research driven. How wonderful, you know, if this is actually evidence based, especially in the medical domain. I mean, every one of us needs this type of endeavors. I do think that in recent years this has been much, much more on the list, even in the Max Planck Society. The idea that even from basic research you can really develop products that help society, this is happening more broadly in society. And there's a lot of people who put a lot of effort in supporting this.

Presenter:
Many thanks, Tom, for sharing these insights and all the best on your further musical journey. Up next is Armin Reinartz from Germany’s Ministry of Education and Research who’ll tell us what the German government does to support R&D infrastructure. But first, it’s time for our monthly news wrap up:

NEWS

Fossil Free
Swedish energy company Vattenfall has pledged to invest more than five billion euros by 2028 in renewable energy, e-mobility, and other sustainable solutions in Germany. The company plans to develop 500 megawatts of solar parks and 300 megawatts of large-scale battery storage facilities each year. Additionally, two planned offshore wind farms, Nordlicht 1 and 2, are set to become operational by 2028. Vattenfall is also committed to significant investments in pumped storage hydroelectric plants and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

Space Superlative
The Exploration Company (or TEC) – a German-French startup – has recorded the largest financing round ever for a European new space company. Headquartered in Munich and Bordeaux, it landed 150 million euros in series B financing. TEC will use the money to develop and test its reusable and in-space refuelable Nix capsule, which can be used to transport people and cargo and is intended to compete with SpaceX’s Dragon.

Tall Order
Construction is underway on a record-setting wind turbine in the eastern German region of Lusatia. The 365-meter-high flagship project will be the largest structure of its kind in the world and the second largest of all in Germany. The turbine’s size will allow it to take advantage of high wind speeds at greater altitudes. The project will cost between EUR 20 and 30 million and is being financed by the Federal Agency for Disruptive Technologies (Sprind).

Decarbonization Investment
German companies spent 85 billion euros in 2023 on reducing their CO2 emissions, says the state economic development bank KfW. That was 12 percent more than in 2022. Investments focused on electric mobility and charging, electricity generation and storage, and energy efficiency in buildings. Climate protection is currently part of the corporate strategy of more than half of German companies.

And finally some more commercial investment with an R&D Record 
German companies spent nearly EUR 90 billion on commercial research and development in 2023, more than ever before. That’s according to a survey carried out by the education organization Stifterverband on behalf of the German Ministry of Education and Research. The sum represented an 8.4 percent rise in R&D spending. It was led by increases in information and communication technology spending.

Presenter:
That was private R&D spending. Let’s now widen our focus. According to preliminary calculations, the R&D expenditure across all sectors – business, government, non-profit private institutions and universities – amounted to around 130 billion euros in 2023. That was also a new record. What’s more, Germany exceeded the EU-target of three percent of GDP for the seventh year in a row. By comparison, the EU average has been around 2-point-2 percent.
R&D in Germany has a long tradition. The Max Planck Society, for instance, was founded all the way back in 1911. To find out more, we are now joined by Armin Reinartz, Head of the Directorate-General “European and international cooperation” at the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Armin, could you give us an overview of the countries research landscape? For instance what are the so-called Big Four?

Armin Reinartz, BMBF
We have the Max Planck Society, Fraunhofer, the Helmholtz association and the Leibniz-association and these are what we call the big four in Germany. These non-university research institutions are renowned and admired all over the world and they are essential for Germany's position as one of the world's top locations for research and innovation. We consider Germany’s R&D landscape as uniquely broad and also diverse and we think that this is very special. We have around 400 universities including the Universities of Applied Science and over a 1000 publicly funded research institutes and extensive research is carried out not only by the research institutes but also by very innovative SMEs and also by Germany’s large corporations. And there are two other features which I would also like to highlight there. First it is a highly collaborative ecosystem with strong links between excellent science on the one side and then the applied research and the R&D by companies. And second, Germany’s research and innovation environment is also very welcoming towards international researchers. So in the past 3 years Germany has become Europes top destination, we even surpass the UK. And in 2021 around 75.000 international researchers worked at German Universities and public research institutions and only the US recorded higher numbers. Right now, they have roughly about 86.000 international researchers from abroad.

Presenter:
We talk to the heads of international companies a lot here on the podcast, and most praise the German R&D landscape. How does it differ from other countries?

Armin Reinartz, BMBF
I have the privilege to experience a lot of international research systems and am able to visit them and what I often find is that they are – not in all countries but in many countries – they are very centralized and it’s a bit more hierarchical. And there are good arguments also for this, so it’s not a judgement but there are just different path dependencies and institutional settings. And what our path dependency and our institutional setting in Germany promotes, is a very decentralized and bottom up process where researchers and also the research organizations have a lot of independence and that helps to have good bottom up ideas come up but also it increases the diversity we have because this decentralization allows diversity to flourish and that is something that you don’t find very often internationally I’ve come to see.

Presenter: 
We just heard about the massive budget invested in R&D. Very generally, what does both the federal and regional state governments in Germany do to support research institutes?

Armin Reinartz, BMBF
We have very effective and robust systems of public support for them. Mainly these are based on two pillars. The first one is: the federal government and the Länder, the states that we have in Germany, provide a long term institutional funding that’s just safe and secured and always there. And the aim of this is to provide stable financial conditions and academic freedom so that the research institution can perform excellent research. And secondly we also fund R&D projects based on thematic priorities.

Presenter:
Talking about funding: How do freedom of research and strategic governmental funding go hand in hand?

Armin Reinartz, BMBF
It’s always important to have the right balance in this field or between these poles. I can proudly say that Germany is a leader and a strong advocate when it comes to freedom of research. It is even enshrined in article 5 of the German Constitution, of the German Grundgesetz. And Germany is among the top ranking countries in the annual Academic Freedom Index which is an independent research project using statistical measures to show and compare the academic freedom of more than 179 countries. What that means in practice is that researchers in Germany are really free to choose their research topics with hardly any restrictions and they will also most likely find a potential funding opportunity. For example, if you look at the German Research Foundation, the DFG, it has an annual budget of almost 4 billion euros public funding and the DFG funds knowledge-driven projects developed by the academic community itself in all forms and disciplines, almost without any type of thematic restriction. 
And that goes perfectly hand-in-hand with our strategic approach of focusing on key missions such as climate protection, digital transformation or resilient societies. These missions reflect the grand challenges that we are facing in Germany, not just in Germany but all over the world and definitely also in Europe. They have been defined in the Future Research and Innovation Strategy, which was adopted just in 2023. And to implement this strategy, my ministry launches open calls to fund research and innovation projects with specifically contribute to this mission. So overall, the combination of both bottom-up knowledge-driven-research and then an additional strategic focus on specific areas, is a key factor for Germany’s success as a top destination for research and innovation. What I think, why it’s so important to have both, to have fundamental research that is more knowledge-oriented or like less objective-driven, is that: more often than not I dare say, you have things hat researchers come up with that we cannot anticipate, that I in a ministry behind my desk would not even dream of, that also researchers and other actors in the field wouldn’t dream of.

Presenter:
We have just heard a good example for this: Music therapy based on ancient African dancing traditions – a business idea that evolved from a rather open research project. I assume that results like this are music to your ministry’s ears.

Armin Reinartz, BMBF 
That is something we also need to include in the system, so having this foundational research on the one side but pairing it with mission-driven research and then adjusting the more targeted approach based on how the challenges change and also how the instruments and the context and the parameters change. I think that is the way to success.

Presenter:
Earlier you mentioned some 75,000 international researchers working in Germany. How important are international research collaborations in all this?

Armin Reinartz, BMBF
So I am the Director for International Corporation so I have a natural bias in favor of international corporation. But I am convinced and the data also shows that international corporation with our trusted partners is a key success factor for Germany’s competitiveness and prosperity. We have the cross border collaboration in research and innovation as one of our top priorities and we provide a lot of support to create the best conditions to enhance and to keep it up. I think it is fair to say that only a few countries in the world are as open to international cooperation in science and technology as Germany. In Germany researchers and innovators find ample freedom and lots of opportunities to corporates from partners from all over the world. And at the same time, having said that, we are very aware of the geo-political developments going on in the world right now and that might have or do have an actual impact on our security. So that is why we also have a huge concern regarding research security and also put that on the top of our agenda. In our international research collaborations we are convinced that we need both: we need to be as open as possible, but also as closed, where it is necessary.

Presenter:
You’re talking about research results and inventions getting into the wrong hands.

Armin Reinartz, BMBF
I really would like to highlight that: I think a proper and sound research security system is actually enabling international corporation and enable also a positive environment for international cooperation. Because what you can have is a good sound system of research security, is international researchers standing in the same lab, standing in the same research facility and people do not need to worry: Is this person next to me linked to same bad intent, but you know you have a system in place.

Presenter:
Since we’re first and foremost a business podcast, we are obviously particularly interested in how international companies can profit from Germany’s research environment.

Armin Reinartz, BMBF
I think it boils down to the question: What does a knowledge based international company need in this world to be successful? And I think in a nutshell it’s all about access: It’s about access to talent. Access to valuable partners from research and industry. Access to foreign markets and access also to the funding that you need for R&D. And in Germany, an international company can find all of this. It’s one of the safest countries in the world. And we do have a very high quality of life, that’s also what international researchers value about this, about Germany, when they live and work here.

Presenter:
Could you name some practices from recent years illustrating how R&D initiatives have led to new business opportunities?

Armin Reinartz, BMBF
I think there are a couple that I would consider as best practice, but the one I would like to highlight because it’s very present and it’s a major topic that we’ve been working on and that is highly important, that is our success in the area of semiconductors. And we have seen in recent years that global players like TSMC form Taiwan, Apple but also others have announced their plans for massive investments in Germany and partly they are already in a later stage. And that just underlines that we are a highly competitive location, particularly for these key enabling technologies as microelectronics that you need for almost everything. And this did not just happen overnight or come out of the blue obviously. It’s something that we have worked on over many years. We have been investing substantially in the microelectronics research, in the development. And not just in Germany, also in the EU, building, fostering the growth of an ecosystem that this technology needs.

Presenter:
Quite a success story…

Armin Reinartz, BMBF
Especially semiconductors, it’s not just one study program or one funding line but it’s really about the ecosystem. You have all kinds of technologies that come together, you have master programs and PhD programs from various fields that are combined. I think it’s a mix, the strong universities that are linked together with the companies. And one thing that I can also share from personal experience: When I talk to actors in the field, especially in micro electronics and investment decision, decisions that they do, it’s not just the research or not one single thing that makes Germany so attractive. But very often also get’s highlighted the strong tech skills that we have that are based on Germany’s dual system of education and training. And one actor from this field that I exchanged with said: Germany not only has the masters from universities that we need but it also has the Meisters that have the technical skills for maintenance, for keeping things in order, for building also the fabs and the factories. And that is a very strong advantage that Germany has.
 

Presenter:
We just talked to Professor Tom Fritz, a Max Planck researcher and now also entrepreneur. He said that the transfer from research to business is sometimes bumpy. Germans have a reputation of being good at inventing things. But how good are they, in your opinion, at bringing those inventions on the market?

Armin Reinartz, BMBF
That is the key question that we all work on, and that we work on very hard, almost I would say, day and night, to solve and to get better. So right now, Germany ranks ninth in the 2024 Global Innovation Index of the World Intellectual Property Organization. And I think that shows that our performance of our innovation system is already quite good. But of course we are more ambitious. There’s a list of innovative products that we have already now, that Germany has to show by research driven start ups from Germany like novel 3d-printing processes, AI supported optimization in transport, satellite-assisted irrigation in agriculture and many many more. So we have a very long list that we like to show off in this regard. But we do know that we can do much better still. And that’s why the Federal Government has take important steps. Only recently Germany has launched its first time start-up strategy. It’s around 130 concrete measures how we want to be better and how we want to support. We have established two innovation agencies, one the Federal Agency for disruptive Innovation, in short the German abbreviation is SPRIND, and the German Agency for Transfer and Innovation, DATI. And we want that these agencies help us to bring innovations to the market, quickly with the minimum of bureaucracy.

Presenter:
The research landscape is divided into practical and basic research. Germany has an excellent reputation for the former. How much emphasis does the country put on the latter?

Armin Reinartz, BMBF
We in Germany are for sure powerhouse for knowledge-driven research and excellent frontier research. Just apart from the 84 institutes of the world-renowned  Max Planck Society, we have around 400 universities in Germany, which is internationally quite a seizable number. And the Federal Government and the German Länder, our states, have established a joint funding program to secure the long term sustainability and also to enable high quality research in all fields of science. And let me highlight the Excellence Strategy as one of these programs. Under this Excellence Strategy or Strategy of Excellence we provide long-term funding for clusters of excellence and distinct universities of excellence. The aim is to further strengthen  Germany's international position and competitiveness as we consider ourselves as an outstanding research hub and of course we want to keep that position of strengthen it even further. 
I also give you another example: Thanks to the world class researchers at German Universities and our Research Institutes, Germany is a top recipient country of the prestigious grant of the ERC, the European Research Council. ERC, as many are well aware, is highly competitive and funds only the best scientists. I recently even heard somebody say the ERC is a bit like a small Nobel Prize for researchers under 60 and this quite shows how the reputation of this grant is. And then of course I am very proud that so many researchers in Germany and so many research institutions carry out their research with a ERC grant at our German institutions.

Presenter:
In conclusion, give us your ninety second elevator pitch: What are the advantages of the German research location?

Armin Reinartz 
Research and Innovation made in Germany has a great deal to offer. Our big four research institutes, our excellent universities, countless innovative companies and a vibrant start-up scene. We target our support across the entire innovation chain, from excellent science to application. For example in key digital technologies, in health, in biotech, climate-friendly and resilient energy. We do give tax brakes to companies for research and development. So, in total, Germany’s annual expenditure for R&D is already well above the EU-goal of 3 percent of the GDP. That is more than in most other large economies worldwide. And last but not least, in Germany, we are open to the world. We strongly support international corporation in research and innovation with our trusted partners around the glove. Come to Germany, do your research, you will succeed.

Presenter: 
Now that’s putting things in a nutshell. Many thanks Armin Reinartz for your thoughts and insights. As usual, before we say goodbye we’ll take a look at HOW GERMANY WORKS.  

HOW GERMANY WORKS
We’ve got a lot of information about R&D in Germany in this episode, so here’s a brief recap. Research in Germany tends to be less centralized and a bit more bottom-up than in some Western countries. Germany not only has a network of excellent universities. It also benefits from its many extra-university research institutes. The four most prominent are the Max Planck and Fraunhofer societies and the Helmholtz and Leibniz associations.
Commercial research funded by private companies is one major pillar of this environment. But there is also an abundance of funding from both the national government and the 16 regional states that make up the Federal Republic of Germany. The German Ministry of Education and Research ties everything together at a national level, and two recently established bodies particularly promote cutting-edge innovations. They’re the Federal Agency for Disruptive Technologies (SPRIND) and the Federal Agency for Transfer and Innovation (DATI). And that’s HOW GERMANY WORKS.

Presenter:
We've come to the end of another episode of Into Germany. Thanks again to our guests Professor Tom Fritz and Ministerial Department Director Armin Reinartz. If you’re investigating whether you could be bringing your business idea to Germany, get in touch with Germany Trade and Invest. GTAI has lots of fantastic research tools, and we’ll be happy to advise you… all at no cost because we’re a government agency. Get in touch at gtai.com. We’re also keen on your opinions, suggestions and questions. Please leave a comment in your favorite podcast app or drop us a line. You’ll find all the details in our show notes.
On this note - till next time, “Auf Wiederhören” and remember: Germany means business.