Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
development of core technologies themselves. The most important ministries
conducting technology policy in Baden-Württemberg are on the one hand the
Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, and on the other hand the Ministry of
Science, Research and Arts.
An important change, which partly occurred due to the economic recession in
the 1990s, was the shift from a supply oriented technology policy towards more
demand-orientated. In order to become more oriented towards industrial demand,
the so-called Joint Initiative Economy and Politics ('Gemeinschaftsinitiave Wir-
tschaft und Politik') was introduced (Hassink
1996
). This initiative aims at gath-
ering the state government, firms, trade unions and intermediaries at one
conference table. Due to this initiative, private involvement in technology policy
initiatives has increased. Firms, albeit mainly large firms, are participating in the
discussion meetings held in the framework of the Joint Initiative Economy and
Politics. The initiative is meant to speed up the innovative developments that
already took place on the market. In addition to discussing, the parties mentioned
above also develop, implement and carry out concrete projects, such as the support
of co-operation between suppliers and customers in the car industry, measures to
secure competitiveness in mechanical engineering, and the multimedia pilot pro-
ject. The initiative clearly strengthened the already existing institutional em-
beddedness in the region.
When it comes to general advice on aid schemes, business support and the
referring of firms to technological experts, the main economic intermediaries are
the Chambers of Commerce and to a lesser extent the Chambers of Crafts which
serve small craft firms. Other centres try to solve technical problems themselves or
carry out R&D-projects with firms. These technology transfer centres, which have
close links with higher education institutes and public research establishments, can
be divided in two groups. First, all universities and public research establishments,
mainly concentrated in Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Heidelberg, Mannheim and Freiburg,
have their own transfer facilities trying to solve problems of firms in the state.
Second, particularly SMEs are well served by a dense infrastructure of 400
Transfer Centres of the Steinbeis Foundation for Economic Promotion, which was
founded in 1971 to promote technology transfer between polytechnics and firms
(Beise et al.
1995
).
By attaching these centres to polytechnics the state of Baden-Württemberg
hoped to reach particularly SMEs, since practice-oriented polytechnics can over-
come the initial resistance of SMEs to discuss R&D problems with research
institutes. Since in many cases polytechnic professors are directors and since the
centres are specialised in the technologies that prevail in the regional production
structure, there are close social ties between the directors of the centres and the
managing directors in the regions. This structure, therefore, guarantees a high
institutional embeddedness in the region.
Steinbeis Transfer Centres can be divided in two main groups. First, a core
group of traditional Transfer Centres for Technology Consultancy, which have no
subject orientation, provide SMEs with general advice on technological issues and
refer them to other experts. Second, a much larger group of subject-oriented
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