Germany to Focus R&D Efforts on Healthcare Issues

The German government has decided to focus its R&D efforts in 2011 on “research for health,” reports Eucomed in its 30 July newsletter, to counter the considerable challenges faced by the national healthcare system. In 2010, the government earmarked €1.2 billion for healthcare-related research. This amount is expected to rise in 2011.

The key challenge for 2011 will be to accelerate the transfer of basic research into clinical applications. Real R&D success can be measured by the number of real-life applications that it yields, according to German Minister of Research Prof. Dr. Annette Schavan, as cited by Eucomed. To tackle this challenge, the landscape of the German research structure will be changed with the creation of six separate centres of health research for six main diseases.

Tags: German government, Germany, healthcare research, Minister of research, R&D