This month's ideas summit follows Schröder's Social Democrats party strategy meeting in January 2004, where the so-called Weimar Guidelines for Innovation were agreed to as part of a wider reform program called Agenda 2010 (see Box 1). In the Weimar guidelines, the Social Democrats name biotechnology as one of the key technologies that drives growth in Germany. In line with this, the purpose of the summit is to establish ways for Germany—which currently spends 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) on R&D—to meet the European Union target of 3% of GDP spent on R&D by 2010 with industry contributing two-thirds of the total amount.
Members of the biotech industry welcome the announcement, but also criticize the government for sending mixed messages. “On the one hand, they talk about innovation and [promise] a biotechnology strategy,” says Ricardo Gent, managing director of the German Association of Biotechnology Industries (DIB; Frankfurt). “But on the other hand, they exercise restraint.” Gent believes that various laws need to be implemented to create a legal framework that will favor innovation, which has been a buzzword for years in Germany ever since the launch of the BioRegio program in the mid-1990s (Nat. Biotechnol. 15, 943, 1997). But many initiatives designed to boost innovation in the biotechnology sector have been delayed.
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