Germany to pump €1bn into breakthrough innovation

The German agency precede EU plans to create a similar EU agency within its next research framework programme starting in 2021. The agency will be funded with roughly €1bn over 10 years.

The move is intented to keep value creation in Germany.  The idea for such an agency is lent from the US agency DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), which was founded by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950ies to support commercialisation of groundbreaking inventions such as the Internet, GPS or driverless vehicles. Besides Germany, Sweden and Switzerland have already established innovation agencies for non-military purposes. 

The German agency is set to start next year. According to Germany’s minister for economics, Peter Altmaier, a first call will seek for 3 to 4 promising artificial intelligence projects.