Patent activity of German departmental research institutions: declining trend download

February 1, 2022

In 2004, the Science Council began evaluating the German departmental research institutions (RFE) and making recommendations for their role and future development. In its evaluation report, the Science Council attested to the RFE that for the most part they did good to very good consulting and research work, but that there were weaknesses in some areas. The latter were criticized in particular for networking and the achievement of application-oriented research results in the form of patent applications. As a recommendation, "the number of [...] patents and license agreements should be increased" (Wissenschaftsrat, 2007, 14). The “prerequisite for networked knowledge transfer [.], that the management of the institutions actively promotes the publication and patenting activities of the scientific staff.” (ibid., 130f.). Against this background, this short report analyzes the development of patent activity and the patent-related networking of German departmental research institutions since the year 2000.