Institute News

Germany has a robust research landscape, a high-performing industrial sector, and a highly skilled workforce. Nevertheless, the country often fails to translate technological innovations into marketable applications quickly enough – with noticeable consequences for competitiveness and value added. The transfer between research, development, and industrial scaling remains a key challenge for Germany as a business location. The Innovation Council is therefore calling for a reorientation of innovation policy: away from short-term thinking focused on legislative terms, and toward a long-term, evidence-based strategy.

Eight leading figures from science, business, and society will develop concrete recommendations for a more implementation-oriented innovation policy within the Innovation Council. While many debates take place at an abstract level, the Council consistently focuses on the practical realization of innovations. A decisive factor here is the technological, regulatory, and economic framework under which new solutions are actually put into practice. As an independent, interdisciplinary body, the Innovation Council contributes a technology-oriented perspective to the discourse on innovation policy.

5 Impulses for Germany as a Location for Innovation

In its impulses for Germany as a location for innovation, the Innovation Council calls for a holistic approach to the topic of innovation and its impact on Germany as a business location:

1. Establishishing a Long-Term Innovation Strategy
Innovation should not be viewed in terms of legislative cycles. Germany needs a fact-based, long-term strategy with clear priorities regarding key technologies, infrastructure, resources, and skilled workers.

2. Designing Regulation to Foster Innovation
Faster procedures, less bureaucracy, and greater trust are needed. Real-world testing grounds, experimental clauses, and the reduction of “gold-plating” should facilitate innovation – including through Germany playing a more active role at the EU level.

3. Strengthening Investment and Scaling
Key technologies require long-term investment and a willingness to take risks. The goal is not only to develop innovations but also to scale them up in Germany—by creating better conditions for companies, start-ups, and collaborations.

4. Reorienting Education and the Workforce
An innovation-oriented education and labor market system is essential. Lifelong learning, upskilling and reskilling, and the systematic development of talent are crucial to reducing skills shortages.

5. Targeted Advancement of Key Technologies
Germany needs to regain a leading role in technologies such as AI, microelectronics, biotechnology, and robotics. This requires competitive framework conditions, sufficient energy, and consistent industrial implementation.

Dietmar Harhoff emphasizes: “We must now reshape our country and reform our institutions. We can succeed if we rediscover our enthusiasm for innovation and technology. If, like me, you observe start-ups, young people at universities, or apprentices in companies, and see how they use technology every day to improve people’s lives, it is impossible not to be optimistic. The best is yet to come. The Innovation Council can help usher in a new era of success for Germany and Europe – one built on a willingness to innovate and on entrepreneurship.”

The “Future of Germany 2050” initiative was launched by the Association of German Engineers (VDI). Since 2026, the German Informatics Society (Gesellschaft für Informatik) has also been involved, particularly in the field of AI. In this way, the Innovation Council brings together the expertise of two major technical and scientific communities with a combined membership of over 160,000 individuals. Independent of individual business interests, the initiators are pooling their strengths to bring a clear, fact-based voice to the discourse on innovation policy.

Further Members of the Innovation Council are:

Prof. Dr. Lutz Eckstein (RWTH Aaachen and President of the VDI)
Prof. Dr. Veronika Grimm (Nuremberg Technical University and Member of the German Council of Economic Experts)
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Kühling (University of Regensburg and Chair of the Monopolies Commission until 2024)
Dr. Anne Lamp (Founder and entrepreneur in the circular economy sector, traceless materials)
Dr. Melanie Maas-Brunner (Former member of the Executive Board and Chief Technology Officer at BASF, member of the Senate of the Max Planck Society, and, starting in June 2026, President of the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft)
Adrian Willig (Aerospace engineer and Director and Executive Board Member of the VDI)
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Martin Wolf (Aachen University of Applied Sciences and President of the German Informatics Society)

More information:

To the Innovation Council for Germany (in German)
To the initiative „Future Germany 2050“
To the VDI

The workshop is a cornerstone of the broader, VolkswagenStiftung-funded research initiative Playbook Ukraine, which which seeks to design a strategic framework for integrating Ukrainian pharma­ceutical manufacturing into European supply chains while addressing structural vulnerabilities in the EU system. Further background on the project can be found here: VolkswagenStiftung Funds Project to Revitalize Ukrainian Pharma Industry.

The methodology workshop convened a multidisciplinary team of researchers and experts, including Prof. Dr. Liudmyla Petrenko, Prof. Dr. Natalia Mazaraki, Dr. Peter R. Slowinski, Prof. Dr. Karin Hoisl, Elisabeth Hofmeister, and Viktoriia Kyrylenko.

The session focused on discussing scenarios for the future of the Ukrainian pharmaceutical industry within the EU regulatory and industrial ecosystem. A central objective was to stress-test the project’s guiding hypothesis: that targeted cooperation and strategic industrial alignment can simultaneously support the rebuilding of Ukraine’s pharmaceutical sector and contribute to reducing supply-chain vulnerabilities within the EU.

A key contribution came from industry expert Dr. Alexei Slobodianski, Lead EU Qualified Person at Thermo Fisher Scientific in Germany. With over two decades of experience in GMP-regulated environments – including vaccines, advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs), and blood products – Dr. Slobodianski provided a practitioner’s perspective essential for grounding economic theory in industrial reality. His insights helped resolve key uncertainties the research framework and clarified specific operational priorities, establishing a concrete roadmap for the project’s next steps.

Beyond its analytical function, the workshop strengthened interdisciplinary collaboration between legal, economic, and industry-oriented perspectives, ensuring that the project remains closely aligned with real-world pharmaceutical manufacturing constraints and regulatory requirements.

More information:

See Research Poster “From Legacy to Leadership – A Playbook to Rebuild Ukraine’s Pharmaceutical Industry in Partnership with the EU” (PDF) with details on data and methodology, strategies, as well as potential applications and impact.

More (in German) on the acatech website.

However, complex innovation processes, their determinants, and implications cannot be understood from a single disciplinary perspective. In 2013, a new department for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research was added to conduct broader analyses. Combining legal and economic perspectives allows us to better assess the effects of rules, institutions, and the implications of technological change, especially in an era shaped by digitalization and increasingly open and collaborative innovation models. Renamed the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in 2014, our Institute has contributed to a deeper understanding of how innovation and competition interact, how they are shaped by legal and economic frameworks, and how regulation impacts them.

Equally central to the Institute’s mission is promoting early-career researchers. Each year, scholars from around the world join the Institute to pursue doctoral and postdoctoral research, benefit from the infrastructure and library, and contribute to a vibrant global academic community. Initiatives such as the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center (MIPLC) further connect research, teaching, and practice through international legal education.

Today, after 60 years of research, the Institute’s commitment remains unchanged: to conduct independent, foundational research and to provide insights that help to understand and shape the evolving nexus of innovation, competition, and regulation.

The Institute took the anniversary as an opportunity to revamp the Institute’s webpage.
Have a look: The Institute

The relationship between intellectual property (IP) rights and competition policy is complex, especially when viewed through the lens of innovation. At a high level, there is a broad consensus that IP and competition policy, each with its own instruments, share the objective of enhancing consumer welfare and promoting innovation and are, in this sense, complementary. In practice, however, the ‘if’ and ‘how’ innovation considerations (e.g., incentives, appropriability and diffusion) inform competition policy design and enforcement, particularly in IP-intensive cases, raise significant analytical and institutional challenges. Technological and societal developments are reshaping innovation processes, from cumulative and data-driven R&D to platform-based ecosystems, with corresponding shifts in how IP rights are deployed as strategic assets in the market. At the same time, differences in the treatment of IP rights under competition policy across jurisdictions can generate geopolitical frictions, given the central role of IP in international trade and the extra-territorial reach of competition rules. Against this background, the Munich Conference on IP, Competition and Innovation welcomes unpublished papers from lawyers and economists, both on cross-cutting and sector-specific IP and competition law issues. The selected contributions will be discussed in-depth during the two-day event, emphasising the societal impact of the research findings.
 

Full Call for Papers as PDF
 

Please find all detailed information and the registration on the conference webpage.

Annual Conference: Preparatory Meeting in Concepción
 

Preparatory meetings for the 2026 Annual Conference took place in Concepción, Chile, in November 2025. The team visited the Energy Center at the Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción (UCSC) and held talks on possible cooperation in the field of energy technologies and intellectual property. The Chilean university is considered an important partner for scientific exchange in Latin America.

Five Workshops in Bogotá
 

In Bogotá, Colombia, SIPLA organized during November 2025 five exploratory workshops to identify potential cooperation with local experts regarding new SIPLA research projects .

Upcycling and Circular Innovation
The workshop on upcycling and circular innovation highlighted the role of intellectual property in sustainable economic models. Participants discussed how innovations in the circular economy can be legally protected and promoted. A particular focus was placed on the question of how traditional property rights need to be adapted to new business models. The experts analyzed successful examples from the region and identified obstacles that hinder the creative reuse of materials.

Greenwashing
The topic of greenwashing was the focus of another workshop. Experts from the fields of law, business, and civil society analyzed misleading environmental claims and developed approaches for more effective regulation. The discussions showed that many Latin American countries do not yet have sufficient legal instruments to punish false sustainability claims. Participants developed proposals for transparency requirements and sanction mechanisms to better protect consumers.

Plastic and Microplastics
The legal challenges posed by plastic and microplastics were the focus of a third workshop. Discussions focused on regulatory gaps and possible solutions to this growing environmental problem. Particular attention was paid to the question of how liability rules can be designed to oblige manufacturers to take responsibility for their products. The experts looked at international examples and discussed which approaches could be transferred to Latin American contexts.

Hydrogen Technologies
A workshop on hydrogen technologies examined the tension between patent protection, regulation, and innovation. Participants discussed how Latin American countries can exploit their potential in this promising energy sector. A key question was whether strict patent rights inhibit technology diffusion or whether they create necessary investment incentives. The discussions also took into account government support strategies and the importance of technology transfer for the region. This workshop has served as a prelude to the upcoming Annual Conference in Concepción in 2026.

Biological Inputs
The final workshop focused on biological inputs in sustainable agriculture. Biological inputs include products such as biofertilizers, biostimulants, and soil improvers, as well as biological pesticides. Experts discussed regulatory frameworks, innovation incentives, and competition issues in the agricultural sector. One focus was on the approval of biological pesticides and fertilizers, which are often subject to lengthy procedures. Participants examined how regulation can be simplified without compromising safety standards. They also discussed smallholder farmers' access to innovative bio-inputs and possible support instruments.

About SIPLA
 

Smart IP for Latin America is a research initiative of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition. It provides a neutral forum for academic and legal policy discourse on intellectual property and competition law in Latin America. The aim is to inform and advise academia, policymakers, business, and the general public on the basis of impartial and evidence-based fundamental research. The goal is to support the realization of Latin America's social, cultural, and economic potential.

For the first time, the Department for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research hosted the event at the Institute’s new premises at Munich’s Stachus and welcomed more than 40 presenters, discussants, and attendants from over 20 international universities. The program featured twelve paper presentations across seven specialized sessions covering topics such as gender and patents, green technologies, policy and innovation, technology transfer, the science of science, and artificial intelligence.

A major highlight of this year's event was the keynote address by Matt Marx, a professor at Cornell University and Department Editor at the renowned journal Management Science. In his inspiring address, Matt Marx introduced a new initiative that provides large-scale, open-access datasets. These datasets will enable more thorough research connecting scientific discoveries to innovation and entrepreneurship. This new resource promises to be a transformative tool for RISE participants and the broader innovation research community.

We would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who contributed to the resounding success of the RISE8 Workshop 2025. We are incredibly grateful to our inspiring keynote speaker, insightful discussants, and talented presenters for their exceptional contributions.

Special thanks go to the organizing team with Dietmar Harhoff, Dominik Asam, Johannes Könemann, Anastasiia Lutsenko, and Ulrike Morgalla, whose hard work made this event possible.

We are leaving this year's workshop feeling highly motivated and looking forward to RISE9 in 2026 with great enthusiasm!

The complete program for review:

Program RISE8 2025

He succeeds Josef Drexl, who has been Managing Director since 2024. Dietmar Harhoff has been Director at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition since 2013 and already served as Managing Director in 2015/2016 and in 2022/2023.