Presenting his budget to the Bundestag, Research and Technology Minister Heinz Riesenhuber cited “a stronger integration of Europe and the Western world generally” as the reason for greater spending on space research. He argued for greater international collaboration to counter “growing concern about protectionism and current discussion about the disadvantages of the free flow of technological information.” Riesenhuber also announced a 15 percent increase, to $55 million, to enhance the transfer of technology and knowledge from West Germany’s research institutes into the private sector.
Despite such increases, the government’s share of national R&D spending—up by 15 percent over the past six years, compared with a 45 percent rise in private industry—is likely to decline still further in 1988. One type of expenditure that has already fallen, to about half of its 1982 figure, is the direct allocation of government funds to industrial R&D—for example, as various types of subsidies to ...
