Two Nobel Laureates Spur Germany To Revive Interest In Technology

Gottingen, Germany (AHN) - The award of the Nobel laureate to two German scientists has spurred a revival of interest in technology in the country. There are plans to create an Ivy League university for the nation. But the movement of younger Germans toward it may be hampered by a national focus on equality rather than on individual excellence, a funding shortage and a shortage of talent.

Kurt von Figura, president of Georg-August University, observed, "There is a fresh wind," but admitted it make take a while to recover Germany's lost reputation as a center for technological excellence.

The Nazi philosophy of natural selection and survival of the fittest had made many Germans born after World War II veer away from technology.

Another is the dominance of United States scientific institutions in harvesting Nobel laureates in Physics and Chemistry. Prior to the second world war, 15 Nobel laureates in chemistry and 10 in physics had been harvested by Germany. The country managed to return to the laureate circle only this year, but with just two awardees - Peter Grunberg for Physics and Gerhard Ertl for Chemistry.

The small budget allocated higher education has led to an exodus of German bright minds to other European nations and the U.S. Proof of this is only the University of Munich landed a spot, as No. 48, in the recently released top 100 universities in the world. As a result of the eroding education standard in the country, by 2010, there will be a shortage of 30,000 researches, the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce estimates.

Even the number of German patents filed had slipped from 53,000 in 2000 to only 48,500 in 20076. In contrast there are almost 100,000 new patents filed in China, while the U.S. and Japan have 400,000 each.

Germany invented some of the world's major technological advances such as the aspirin, rocket science, quantum physics and the diesel engine.