Taking Regions Seriously: Recent Innovations in German Technology Policy

Abstract

In the era of globalization with its ever-increasing competitive pressure on firms and their employees new knowledge—and particularly new technical knowledge—has become the most important production factor. Moreover, the way that new technical knowledge itself is produced has rapidly changed in recent years: Knowledge production becomes more and more complex, such that more and more people interact in this specific production process and the half-life period of new technical knowledge becomes shorter and shorter which means that enterprises that want to stay on top have to speed up the process of knowledge production. These fundamental changes in the way that new technology is produced challenge traditional technology policy approaches and call for policy innovations. Indeed, as the OECD has documented, in most industrialized countries policymakers try—more or less successfully—to reform their traditional technology policy approaches (OECD 2000).