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Woman at the microscope: Mankind could expect spectacular advances
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Mankind could long have been wealthier.
It could be more climate-friendly and live healthier in general.
What's more, it could get some of their pressing common problems under control more quickly - from climate change to pandemics.
Sounds bombastic?
I guess you can say.
In
any case
, the messages of a study that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) presented to the Washington autumn meeting (from
Monday
) sound hopeful.
Tenor: The countries around the world should invest more in the creation of new knowledge.
If more money were to flow into basic research, mankind could expect spectacular advances.
The IMF calculates that an increase in government research spending by a third would increase annual economic growth per capita by 0.2 percentage points.
That doesn't sound like much.
But in the 2010s the corresponding rates were below two percent on average worldwide.
Research-fueled growth acceleration would be a pretty great development.
Even better: Such a booster shot for global dynamics would also be cheap.
The IMF believes that the benefits are so great that the expenditure financed itself within a decade.
Manageable financial risk, big impact
It's about comparatively small sums.
In Germany, for example, the federal and state governments spend around ten billion euros annually on the largest chunks of basic research.
With this, the state finances the facilities of the Helmholtz Association, the Max Planck Institutes and the institutes of the Leibnitz Association as well as research at universities (through the German Research Foundation).
Added to this are EU funds and grants for applied research.
With this manageable state budget, Germany is already quite successful.
Two Nobel Prizes this year and one and a half last year (if you generously count the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the French Emmanuelle Charpentier who works in Berlin) show how fruitful the German research landscape is.
Increasing spending by a third, as the IMF is proposing, would cost a good three billion euros, only 0.75 percent of the federal budget.
What is lacking in this country is the transfer of new knowledge into new products, business models and companies.
But that's another story, one that takes place primarily in the financial markets.
more on the subject
German Nobel Laureate in Physics: Are we currently experiencing climate change or a climate catastrophe, Mr. Hasselmann? An interview by Johann Grolle
Quick solutions are of course not to be expected. It will take a long time until basic research - maybe, at some point - becomes economically viable innovations. The mRNA technology that is now being used for the corona vaccinations by Biontech (Mainz) and Moderna (USA) is based on three waves of research contributions that go back to the 1970s. Even some of the scientific publications that are directly relevant to patents are ten years old.
Basic research takes a long breath.
It is fraught with great uncertainty because some research projects fail.
It is often completely unclear whether a project will ever produce anything economically viable.
But compared to the complex product-related development, which is supported in Germany and elsewhere with a whole bunch of funding programs, the creation of basic knowledge is generally a cheap affair.
The financial risks of increasing the budget would be manageable.
Why too little is invested
From a political point of view, however, basic research has two huge disadvantages: The slow pace makes it unattractive for elected officials, because visible successes rarely occur in the course of a legislative period. And: The fruits of scientific efforts do not only accrue at the research location, but are spread all over the world, because everyone who has the appropriate qualifications can use the research proceeds.
That's a problem.
Because each individual researching country can only expect part of the income, but has to bear the full costs, too little is invested.
Everyone is reluctant to invest, progress, innovation and productivity are paralyzed.
In times of tight budgets, research budgets can also be reduced fairly painlessly - the consequences only become noticeable after a long delay.
Those who suffer too little research efforts are not only rich societies, but also the citizens of emerging and developing countries, who particularly benefit from progress elsewhere.
"Scientific knowledge travels far through space and time," write the IMF researchers.
Should a new era of scientific isolation begin, for example as a result of the systemic competition between China and the USA, the long-term consequences would be disastrous. To make the transition to climate neutrality by the middle of this century, swarms of technological breakthroughs are needed. They will only be able to contribute to slowing global warming if they are quickly available around the globe. The same applies to pharmaceutical products to contain pandemics, as the corona crisis has shown.
From a purely economic point of view, the following applies: The aging of the world population will be easier to cope with if it is accompanied by rapid advances in productivity.
A shrinking workforce would then not be condemned to creeping impoverishment.
Future generations could also enjoy rising living standards.
Globalization has changed its character
The discussion about the global research gap shows how much globalization has changed its character. In its early phase in the 1990s and 2000s, it was a rather simple event: companies from western countries multiplied their production facilities as well as their sales and purchasing networks at more and more locations. They take advantage of the lower wages in the emerging countries to be able to manufacture more cheaply. A fierce competition between locations revolved primarily around costs. All in all, more and more of the same was produced, with an enormous expenditure of resources.
This phase is over.
It has long been clear that it is not just about
competition
between companies, states and systems, but also about
cooperation
in solving global problems - from climate change to pandemics to migration.
The best chance of solving these problems is through researching them scientifically.
Only then can there be hope of being able to develop effective counter-strategies.
It is therefore a good idea to put more emphasis on basic research.
It would be a worthwhile project for the future government coalition.
And it belongs on the agenda of the G7, which Germany will chair next year.
The main economic events of the week ahead
Open assembly area
Washington -
World Financial Conference
- Fall Meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (until Sunday).
The conference takes place partly on-site and partly in online formats.
Stockholm -
Great thinkers
- Announcement of the winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics.
Expand Tuesday area
Washington -
World Forecast
- At the autumn meeting, the IMF presents its semi-annual report on the state of the world economy.
Expand Wednesday area
Wiesbaden / Washington -
Rising prices
I
- The Federal Statistical Office and the US government publish new figures on inflation developments in September.
Expand Thursday area
Beijing -
Rising Prices II
- China's Bureau of Statistics announces the development of consumer prices in September.
Open area Friday
Washington
-
Rising prices III
- The US Federal Reserve publishes new figures on inflation expectations in America.
Any further increase would suggest that inflation is solidifying.
The most recently measured increases in consumer prices of more than five percent were viewed by the central bankers as a temporary phenomenon.
