idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Nachrichten, Termine, Experten

Grafik: idw-Logo
Science Video Project
idw-Abo

idw-News App:

AppStore

Google Play Store



Instance:
Share on: 
04/07/2016 10:54

Microtechnology industry keen to invest and innovate

Mona Okroy-Hellweg Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit
IVAM Fachverband für Mikrotechnik

    In spite of the continued low level of investment in Europe, the microtechnology industry is rather keen to invest and innovate. According to the annual economic data survey of the IVAM Microtechnology Network, more than a third of all European microtechnology companies intend to increase investments and intensify R&D efforts in 2016.

    The level of investment in Europe is still significantly below the level of 2007, the period before the financial and economic crisis. The Juncker investment plan, which was installed in early 2015, and the European Central Bank’s step to cut the main interest rate and raise the deposit rate for dormant bank deposits in March 2016 are supposed to overcome the investment backlog.

    Instead of relying on the effects of European monetary policy and easier loans, the microtechnology industry invests a lot of its own revenue. In 2015, 28 percent of companies have invested more than 20 percent of their turnover in research and development.

    While in the whole of Europe the medical technology and healthcare industry continues to be the microtechnology industry’s major driver of innovation, in Germany the automotive industry has clearly outrun medical technology as top target market. The new energy policy and the demand for new drive concepts for electric mobility have obviously given a boost to innovation and created new business opportunities in the supplying industry.

    What slows down the innovativeness of the European high-tech industry is the special status of some European countries. The partly associated status within the EU framework program Horizon 2020 to which the EU has downgraded Switzerland after the referendum on the mass immigration initiative in February 2014 negatively affects the R&D performance of high-tech companies and institutes throughout Europe, since joint research activities and projects are hampered. The industry representatives fear further disadvantages for cooperation, innovation and, ultimately, the competitiveness of the European microtechnology industry, if the majority of the population of Great Britain opted for the country’s withdrawal from the EU in the referendum in June 2016.

    IVAM Survey

    The IVAM Microtechnology Network collects economic data of the microtechnology, MEMS, nanotechnology, advanced materials and optical/photonics industries once a year. In February 2016, more than 3,000 companies and research institutes in Europe have been asked about their economic situation and business strategy, the possible exit of Great Britain from the European Union, and the status of Switzerland in Europe.


    More information:

    http://Information: www.ivam.de/research


    Images

    Development of investment and innovation
    Development of investment and innovation
    Source: IVAM Research


    Criteria of this press release:
    Business and commerce, Journalists, Scientists and scholars
    Economics / business administration, Mechanical engineering, Medicine
    transregional, national
    Research results
    English


     

    Development of investment and innovation


    For download

    x

    Help

    Search / advanced search of the idw archives
    Combination of search terms

    You can combine search terms with and, or and/or not, e.g. Philo not logy.

    Brackets

    You can use brackets to separate combinations from each other, e.g. (Philo not logy) or (Psycho and logy).

    Phrases

    Coherent groups of words will be located as complete phrases if you put them into quotation marks, e.g. “Federal Republic of Germany”.

    Selection criteria

    You can also use the advanced search without entering search terms. It will then follow the criteria you have selected (e.g. country or subject area).

    If you have not selected any criteria in a given category, the entire category will be searched (e.g. all subject areas or all countries).