Building bridges

We all know the Gartner hype cycle. From the technology trigger by academic research upwards, there are plenty of funding instruments to keep the train moving. In Germany, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) supports fundamental to applied research at universities while the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) brings together industry and academic partners with the aim of transferring research results to applications and economic turnaround – similar to missions of FOM and NWO in the Netherlands.

For mature companies and technologies, there’s support from the Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWi) and big European programs and projects like Horizon 2020 and ECSEL. Since 2018, the microelectronics industry is funded also through the IPCEI program.