Objective and guidelines: the support provided by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) aims to consolidate and expand Germany's technological leadership in the ICT sector. The ICT research program 2020 presented here is the contribution of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research to the implementation of research funding in the field of ICT innovation of the High Technology Strategy and the action program iD2010.
Changing and emerging markets offer great potential for growth
Metatrends of the ICT sector
ICT’s role as an engine of innovation
Good ideas bring more opportunity
Despite considerable cost pressure, German companies are increasing their investments in ICT equipment. On average, German companies today produce only 35.7% of their goods and services in-house and are increasingly outsourcing the majority of their work to service providers.
Made in Germany”– the “high profile”
Leading the automotive industry
Good prospects: medicine and logistics
In the coming years, it will become increasingly important to determine the position of containers and general cargo in real time. The leading role played by German developers in the European satellite navigation project Galileo will provide a further technological edge here.
ICT innovations driven by increasing energy costs
Security technology: a booming sector
More courage and more education
Sound research for the markets of tomorrow
Chips set the pace
Nanomodules will be running things in the future
Scientists from the Nanoelectronic Systems Center for Information Technology (CNI) at the Jülich Research Center play right at the top of the international league. And the Institute of Applied Physics at the University of Hamburg amazed all experts by measuring the magnetism of individual atoms.
Software brings computers up to speed
But despite all these good starts in Germany, the US is still considered a forerunner in the field of nano-electronics. And although in Hänsch's opinion, Germany is well prepared for possible future developments in the field of quantum information, there are still gigantic experimental problems to be overcome before a quantum computer can work.
Intelligent networks
The researchers working at the Chair of Mobile Telecommunication Systems at the Technical University of Dresden are also focusing on 4G research. Currently, the complicated electronics fill entire lab cabinets and certainly do not fit into a mobile phone.
Grids and supercomputers – the perfect simulation
In this way, any mobile phone can act as a base station, resulting in a flexible and rapid increase in network coverage, depending on how the phones are distributed. According to scientists at the Technical University of Dresden, this offers huge opportunities for new small companies in Germany, with the many small start-ups that can result in new companies with or even 10,000 employees.
Sensor systems: grasping things on the Web
Together with the D-Grid Initiative, Germany's supercomputing potential is coming together in the Gauß Center for Supercomputing, where scientists from Germany's High Performance Computing Centers in Jülich, Munich/Garching and Stuttgart are working together. Applications for sensor systems are also growing to include manufacturing processes and environmental monitoring, based on detectors for chemicals and pollutants.
Electricity: the digital future
Semantic technologies must ensure that all individual components in the Internet of Real Things understand things in the same way before an intelligent total system can evolve. German scientists are at the forefront of the new field of energy meteorology.
Sensitised computers
Their findings and the advantages offered by ICT technology for power generation are combined in WISENT's "Wissensnetz Energiemeteorologie" (Knowledge Network Energy Meteorology), which lays the foundations for a secure and sustainable energy supply in the future. This development is still in its very early stages, but today it is already possible to use an electronic touch module that looks like a small needle board to simulate surface roughness.
Sensitive robots
The next funding program is the contribution of the BMBF to the implementation of the iD2010 action program and ICT-related research funding activities in the High Tech Strategy. The other ICT-relevant measures of the federal government in this field of activity can be found in the iD2010 action program and are not mentioned below, apart from the BMWi funding for multimedia and internet technologies (see section 5.1).
Areas of application / sectors
Basic technologies
Quality objectives
Strategic research and development lines
Strategic instruments
In addition, an SME-specific financing instrument is introduced for the ICT intervention area (see section 4.1.4).
Cohesive and uniform ICT policy
Contiguous research and technology programmes of the BMBF
The goal of security quality (and reliability) and thus the research topic of ICT security are not only part of this research program; they are also being addressed by the federal government's new "Civil Security Research" program as far as issues that could destabilize society are concerned.
ICT 2020 as a learning programme
Strategic instruments
- Lead innovations
Other main innovations can and should be defined during the program period and during any continuation of the program. Together with politics, science and industry, they are asked to develop concepts for further major innovations.
Lead innovation
Initiative for automotive electronics
Challenges
Objectives
Strategic partners
Research topics and technological prerequisites
Networked intelligent objects in logistics
Communication technology for safe mobility
Lead innovation ICT for healthcare
Technology alliances
The technology-specific approach of a concerted innovation strategy is implemented in the concept of technology alliances. The success of technology alliances depends on alignment with technology-oriented time frames (roadmaps) and integration of different application areas/sectors.
Technology alliance Digital product memory
Research issues and focal technology points
Technology alliance
Standards for communication of the future
New standards: 100 Gbit/s Ethernet for network operators, efficient, reliable and scalable packet transport networks, future mobile standards to 3GPP-LTE ("beyond LTE"). New technologies for continuous development of Internet-based services, such as peer-to-peer technologies or IMS-based platforms and components for data transmission, which use the bandwidth of the existing lines much more efficiently.
Virtual technologies and real products
Strategic partners (partly already organized in the “Industriekreis Augmented Reality”)
Research topics and technological focus
Ambient intelligence for autonomous networked systems
Service platforms
Service platforms consist of horizontal collaboration between science and industry, but also include vertical elements, as in the case of the main innovations, because new ICT-based services should also enable integration of new service provision. Together with politicians, participants from the fields of science and industry are asked to devise further service platforms.
Service platform ICT for services and the provision of services
Service platform Flexible modules for communications services
ICT-specific SME funding
This is why it is mainly technological and research-intensive SMEs that will play a greater role than before in the public financing of innovation. In addition to cross-sectoral activities in the context of the High Technology Strategy – such as research grants across various technologies to universities and research institutes that conduct SME-related research and development and are jointly funded by federal and state governments, as well as opportunities for to be involved in alliance projects in the context of specific technology programs - this also makes a significant contribution to increasing the innovative capabilities of SMEs in Germany and to better networking with industry and research.
Basic technologies
- Electronic systems and microsystems
There is a constant increase in the number of critical applications where electronic systems must be fail-safe. For Germany – as a country that strives for a leading position in the global market with its innovative technological products – electronics are simply indispensable and an increasingly important element in the value chain.
Creating centres of excellence for devices and tools required for electronic production
Driver assistance systems, for example: if worse comes to worst, a driver may be able to compensate for failure of ABS, but this is not the case if it fails in the middle of an evasive maneuver initiated autonomously by the system itself. In the coming years, there is a need for centers of excellence across all areas of lithography and structuring with the inclusion of all related aspects, such as new materials, new concepts for devices and processes, metrology and analysis tools, etc.
Expanding Electronic Design Automation (EDA) as enabling technology for electronics
High-resolution lithography for nanostructures Materials, innovative structures and processes for peak performance chips (energy efficiency, highest integration, multi-functionality, cutting-edge memory and logic concepts, new chip architectures).
New electronics for opening up new applications
Organic electronics
Magnetic microsystems
RFID and smart labels
Software systems and knowledge processing
Previous BMBF research funding in the context of the former IT Research 2006 program covers important issues related to software. 9 THESEUS – BMWi's current funding focus on creating a new knowledge infrastructure for the next generation of the Internet, especially using semantic procedures (“Internet of Services”) – is presented in section 5.1.
Software-intensive embedded systems
Grid applications and grid infrastructure
Customization of software applications - for physics, chemistry, biology, meteorology, climate, environment, bioinformatics, biophysics, pharmacy, medicine, aero- and fluid mechanics, mineral resources, business, finance, visualization, etc. – new network infrastructure and new service concepts. Development of mass networks for millions of users in the fields of health (disease, wellness, fitness, sensor monitoring), leisure (multiplayer games, digital entertainment, sports), education and further training (lifelong learning). , school networks, digital interactive laboratories) and work (online courses, training, collaboration).
Virtual / augmented reality
Multi-modal and perceptual user interfaces integrating voice, gesture and touch aspects for interacting with virtual worlds. Extension of activities into non-technical areas with the aim of investigating or enabling the technology for applications in the social sciences, the arts and the humanities.
The cross-sector topic of software engineering
Cross-section technology security and reliability
Communication technology and networks
As a result, the number of jobs in communication technology in Germany increased by an average of 4.5 % p.a. European mobile phone system suppliers dominate the global market, with production taking place mainly in Germany.
New standards for future communication networks
Communication without net restrictions
For this purpose, there will have to be a quantum leap in the quality of the bandwidth range. As a result, there will be a dramatic increase in the dynamic development of data traffic and its maximum loads.
Network security and reliability
Frequency economy: the most efficient possible use of the limited resources available, through research topics such as cognitive radio and multi-cell collaboration techniques. Network convergence: access to multiple networks / mobility / quality management for universal delivery of the required services.
Autonomous networked sensor systems
Future developments
Electronic systems of the future
Organic computing
Integrated photonics
Network information theory for communica- tion systems
Development and testing of new multimedia and Internet technologies 10
Funding for multimedia technology is aimed at realigning, automating and optimizing workflows and value chains, new methods of transferring and acquiring knowledge (e-learning, knowledge management), and individualized, context-sensitive and mobile knowledge sharing.
Next-generation media
Mobile applications
Radio frequency identification (RFID)
Creating a new knowledge infrastructure for the Internet of the future
THESEUS' strategic goal is to develop and test a new Internet-based knowledge infrastructure ("Internet of services"). The solutions developed within the framework of the THESEUS program for finding and presenting multimedia content on the Internet should also enable German and European cultural institutions to provide structured access to a wide audience for innovative presentation of cultural resources without having to rely on external resources.
Start-up competition: “Mit Multimedia erfolgreich starten”
Cooperation between leading partners in Germany's ICT science community and ICT industry and the pool of resources is intended to develop innovative technologies (Web 3.0, semantic procedures, pattern recognition) that will serve as a basis for internationally competitive solutions. and cause a breakthrough regarding new integrated ICT services in highly promising areas such as software, medical technology, media and mechanical engineering.
Future developments
European cooperation in the
7th EU Research Framework Programme
This is why the EU's work programs are constantly aligned with the key funding points of the ICT 2020 programme. The aim is to support the industry in its efforts to achieve maximum international competitiveness and thereby protect jobs in Germany in the long term.
Joint strategy development and project funding
Another strategic approach to the 7th Research Framework Program was created through the European Technology Platforms (ETP). At the same time, two technological platforms from the ICT sector have been formed as JTIs (Joint Technology Initiatives): these are
ARTEMIS
Here, at an early stage, the European ICT industry developed joint future visions for areas that will be economically strategic in the future. Their implementation and realization are described in the research agendas and constitute a guideline for joint European and national research policy.
ENIAC
Initiative for Excellence
The aim is to create synergistic effects between the Commission and us, in order to significantly increase the competitiveness of European industry. A university must have at least one excellence cluster, one graduate school and a consistent overall strategy to become an internationally recognized lighthouse of science.
ICT research by science organizations
Funding for "Future concepts for expanding top university research" is intended to further strengthen the research profile of ten selected universities.
Cooperation within the scientific sector
Cooperation between science and industry
Max Planck Society
Fundamental contributions in the field of software are primarily provided by the Max Planck Institute for Computer Science and the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems. The Max Planck Institute for Software Systems was founded in November 2004 and is currently in the process of expansion.
Fraunhofer Gesellschaft
The Max Planck Society (MPG) institutes pursue top-level knowledge-based pure research, open to applications, in the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. Many of the issues addressed by the Max Planck Institutes are directly or indirectly relevant to information and communications engineering.
Leibniz Association
In the five years since the integration of the GMD institutes into the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, the ICT group has established joint business units and strategic topics for preliminary research and joint technology scenarios. The ICT group also coordinates research perspectives at an internal level for many different aspects of life and work, which are elaborated and validated in the form of application scenarios and technology roadmaps in collaboration with external experts.
Hardware for ICT
Current issues of great importance – areas where preliminary research addresses or creates new markets with a two to three year horizon – are security and usability, ambient intelligence and network computing, games and entertainment, data analysis and information retrieval. tion, manufacturing and simulated reality, software engineering and next-generation networks.
The scientific application of ICT
Helmholtz Association
Maximum-scalability hardware and software for supercomputers
Research Centre Jülich (FZJ)
German Aerospace Centre (DLR)
Young skilled employees and executives
Changing the situation regarding young skilled employees and managers in the field of ICT will only be possible if all sectors of society join the effort. The aim should be to integrate ICT research policy with the overarching strategy for young skilled employees and managers in the ICT sector.
ICT project funding from the BMBF (research, budget planning)
ICT project funding from the BMWi (research, budget planning)
ICT institutional funding from the BMBF for the period 2007– 2011 (planned and estimated amounts) Total
Total funding from the BMBF for ICT research Summe
Funding is mainly provided for combined projects carried out jointly by industry and research institutions focusing on the innovation and value-added chain, i.e. industrial companies (with headquarters and revenue destination mainly in Germany) and universities, large research institutions and other R&D institutions can be involved in this program.
Information on funding from the BMBF is available from the BMBF Funding
The financing in the ICT sector in the context of direct project financing is based on the strategic instruments described in section 4.1 and the current framework illustrated in sections 4.2 and 4.3. Financing of individual projects or combined research projects involving only scientific partners is only possible in exceptional cases.
Information on ICT funding in particular (BMBF, BMWi) is available from
BMBF information on nanotechnology http://www.bmbf.de/de/nanotechnologie.php BMBF information on optical technologies http://www.bmbf.de/de/3591.php. An extension of the World Wide Web designed to allow content to be found based on their meaning (semantics).
