Dr. Johannes von Thadden, Head of Political Affairs, EADS Astrium in Germany

“Emerge stronger from the crisis“ –
through high tech and innovation

n order to master today's economic challenges, it is necessary to invest consistently in technologies of the future.

No one knows how long the effect of the financial and economic crisis will last. We do, however, know two things for certain:

1. It will have a long-lasting impact on both our generation and the next ones.
2. The only successful way out of the crisis is to roll up our sleeves and support those sectors that create Germany's strength – high tech and innovation.

This is the only approach capable of achieving the ambitious goal set by Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor: to emerge stronger from the crisis.

Consequently, aside from short-term measures to stabilise the financial system, economy and the job market, a strategy is also needed to create a medium-term basis capable of driving us forward out of the crisis and coping with the impact it has had.

Fortunately, Germany can count on a particularly high number of innovative companies, notably our wealth of owner-managed small and medium-sized enterprises as well as numerous large R&D intensive companies.

Furthermore, the Federal Government does not need to draft a new innovation and high tech strategy because it has already launched an intelligently structured and solidly funded high tech initiative in this legislative period. In March 2007, the government approved a comprehensive package defining 17 key technologies, initiating concrete projects and improving the cooperation between companies, research institutions and universities. The Federal Government has earmarked over 12 billion euros for these efforts. The 17 areas for future-directed research comprise sectors such as nano, energy and environmental technologies, as well as research into health issues and medical technologies.

Space technologies enhances the quality of living

Aerospace technologies is the one of the best supported sectors, in which the German Government alone invested more than 3 billion euros because the innovation potential of that branch and its the impact on the economy and the quality of living are particularly high. Here is only one example: The performance requirements of satellites, e.g. to transmit ever more telephone calls, are growing constantly. Thus, the satellites need increasingly more power. In general, satellites receive power via their solar wings, but a rising power demand cannot possibly be met by creating ever bigger wings. That is why the aerospace industry has taken a keen interest in innovative and enhanced high performance solar cells. A few months ago, the medium-sized producer Azur Space from Heilbronn and the EADS Astrium space services company presented a new generation of solar cells with significantly improved conversion of sunlight into electric energy – and with a future use that includes energy efficiency on Earth.

The increased support for space technologies has already borne fruit. Since the end of last year, Germany has become, for the first time, the largest investor in the new European space programmes. These include key projects in environmental and climate research, weather forecasting, space-based communication, the further development of the European Ariane 5 carrier rocket, the continued scientific use of the European space laboratory Columbus – e.g. for research in the health sector – or the increasingly important area of space security, especially as regards asteroids and space debris.
In all of these fields, it has been possible to promote a successful European cooperation, thus ensuring substantial technology and work packages for Germany. This achievement is reflected concretely in the figures: last year, EADS Astrium expanded its work force in Germany by 7% to 4000 employees. Expressed as an absolute percentage, this may not look very but one needs to bear in mind that the personnel's level of qualifications is unrivalled ‑ three-quarters of all Astrium staff are graduates, the majority of them engineers. The remaining 25% of the staff are highly qualified skilled workers.

And what's even more important in the crisis: in 2009, the German aerospace industry will continue creating more jobs. Not only EADS Astrium, but also the German Aerospace Centre – Germany's equivalent of NASA – profited especially from the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology's additional funding for the national German aerospace budget and will offer thousands of jobs in their research institutes.

Qualified skilled labour wanted

At present, for example, navigation engineers are in demand to realise the Galileo project, an independent European navigation system funded by the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs. Astrium is looking for motivated apprentices keen on working on the implementation of a future European system to collect environmental and security data. An association of companies is preparing for a future German mission to the moon, a project not only capable of generating important scientific insights but also producing significant technical advances. Physicists and aerospace engineers are needed to help prepare the next step in European space travel: the further development of the automatic space transporter, which previously burned up on re-entry into the earth's atmosphere. Now, though, the aim is to create a system capable of securely transporting goods back to Earth. Such an atmosphere entry technology can also be applied to any future manned missions to other celestial bodies with atmospheres.

In mid-April, an Ariane 5 is set to carry the most modern space telescope in the world, the Herschel telescope which was built in Friedrichshafen, Germany. Herschel will be anchored 1.5 million kilometres above the Earth in space and will give a substantial boost to our knowledge about the period directly after the "Big Bang". Engineers working at Lake Constance succeeded in developing a highly complex cooling system for the telescope, which even finds the freezing depths of space too warm.

Many such examples can be found in other high-tech sectors in Germany as well. Just as it is right and proper now to tackle the immediate effects of the crisis, it is just as important to bear the future in mind. This is why the high technology initiative needs to be systematically continued and expanded in the coming legislative period. Rolling up the sleeves in innovation ‑ so that we can emerge stronger from the crisis.


This article was written for hbpa by Dr. Johannes von Thadden.