America’s president is currently tightening budgets on R&D and focusing scientific efforts on things like fossil fuel energy and military systems. Meanwhile in Germany, quite the opposite is happening: Angela Merkel is slowly but steadily growing the nation’s research efforts to further cement its standing as a scientific heavyweight.
Nature has a great piece reflecting on the nation’s impressive scientific standing. The country has, of course, always had a fine heritage: it was a scientific trailblazer in the 19th century, creating universities and prestigious research organizations that continue to pump out impressive research. But Angela Merkel, the nation’s chancellor and (tellingly) an ex-physicist, has been on a decade-long drive to keep the country at the cutting edge.
Over the past 10 years, Nature points out, Germany has gradually increased its national spend on research and development up to almost 3 percent of its GDP—a larger proportion than America ponies up. It’s set up research clusters that bring together researchers from around the country to work on the most important areas, like artificial intelligence, cancer, or clean energy. And it’s changed laws so that universities can pay researchers more in order to attract and retain talent.
Don’t settle for half the story.
Get paywall-free access to technology news for the here and now.
