Institute News

The idea of pin factory visits goes back to Adam Smith, who at the end of the 18th century used the production of pins to illustrate the increase in productivity through the division of labor.

As one of the largest technology service providers and electronics specialists in Germany, the technology company TQ Group offers tailored and innovative solutions to a wide range of industries, from development, production and other services to product lifecycle management. It is active in the fields of E²MS (Electronic Engineering Manufacturing Services), embedded systems, drives, robotics, automation, medical applications as well as aviation and avionics.

In addition, TQ provides a complete range of its own products, such as embedded modules, base boards, human-machine interface systems, and drive and automation solutions. TQ also combines both as an ODM (Original Design Manufacturer). On the basis of its modular service and solution portfolio, the company develops and produces customer-specific products internationally, relying on “Made in Germany”. It is thus exemplary in the area of innovation in many respects and can provide science with interesting insights into the reality of innovative companies in Germany.

Insights at three sites

The team of the economics department visited three sites in six hours. The first route led to the company headquarters in Gut Delling near Seefeld in Upper Bavaria, where the doctoral students and postdocs, together with Dietmar Harhoff, had the opportunity to exchange ideas with the CEO and TQ founder Rüdiger Stahl and learn about interesting topics related to innovation, technology and development. Stahl spoke about the company's history, evolution – from a 2-man firm in 1994 to an international technology company – and innovation strategy. The framework conditions, challenges and regulatory restrictions for innovative companies in Germany came up again and again:

The global economic situation presents German companies with a variety of challenges. Fragile supply chains, geopolitical crises and protectionist laws such as the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act are impacting the ability of German companies to plan and compete. There is a particular need for action in the area of innovation. This also includes traditional sectors such as mechanical engineering and hardware manufacturing, in which continuous innovations must be pursued. Targeted measures are needed to sustainably strengthen innovation in Germany and make German companies competitive on an international level.

At the second site in Inning am Ammersee, Head of Production Julian Hornung gave the group insights into the fabrication of drive systems, from high-performance drives for e-bikes to RoboDrives. Finally, at the third location in Durach, the team took an in-depth look at automation and spoke with Sören Bruckmann, Head of TQ Robotics, Head of Sales Robert Vogel, and Georg Weiß, who heads R&D in Durach. The most debated question was why small and medium-sized companies in Germany lagged so far behind in automation.

In the showroom, a postdoc with research focus on automation and human-machine interactions had the opportunity to test the operation of a so-called cobot, i.e., a collaborative robot that works together with humans and is not separated from them in the production process by protective devices. The final leg of the journey took the team to the Durach production halls, where robots also produce robots.

The Institute’s researchers took away a lot of inspiration and some real-world and practical insights. More pin factory visits are to take place.

To the TQ company website.

In the statement of reasons for the award, the Adepi cites that the Department of Intellectual Property and Competition Law is “one of the most prestigious and important research centers in the world in this field”.

Since 2019, the Adepi Award recognizes the work of individuals and institutions that work for the protection and development of intellectual property in general and the collective management of rights in particular, from fields such as politics, education, business or law, contributing to the creation of culture in a fair and sustainable way.

Notification on the Adepi website

Update:
At the festive award ceremony on 5 July at the Palacete de los Duques de Pastrana in Madrid, Begoña Gonzalez Otero received the award on behalf of the Institute's Intellectual Property and Competition Law Department from the Spanish Minister of Culture and Sport, Miquel Iceta.

This year, for the 7^th edition already, the members of the organizing team from ETH Zurich’s Center for Law & Economics, the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Technical University of Munich, and ISTO at LMU Munich were joined by Christian Peukert from HEC Lausanne and Imke Reimers from Northeastern University.

The main conference program comprised 3 keynote lectures, 17 plenary presentations and a daily poster session, including a poster slam.

The first conference day, which was co-organized by Tobias Kretschmer, Christian Peukert, and Imke Reimers, focused on “Creative Industries”, the “Pandemic Push”, the “Regulatory Push”, and “Algorithmic Pricing”. The day’s keynote address was delivered by Nigel Melville, who is an Associate Professor of Technology and Operations at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Management. His topic was “Advancing Environmental Sustainability in the Fourth Industrial Revolution”.

Chaired by Dietmar Harhoff, Joachim Henkel, and Hanna Hottenrott, the presentations of the second conference day related to “Knowledge Production”, “R&D and Death”, “R&D and War”, and “R&D, Grants and Taxes”. In her keynote lecture “Incentives and the Social Fabric of Knowledge Work: Evidence from Field Experiments”, Jana Gallus provided evidence from three field experiments to shed light on the effects of non-monetary incentives on knowledge production. Jana Gallus is an Associate Professor of Strategy and Behavioral Decision Making at the Anderson School of Management of the University of California, Los Angeles.

Traditionally, the second day ended with a hearty dinner in a typical Bavarian Inn. During the evening, Kimia Heidary from the University of Leiden received the MSI Ph.D. Workshop’s Best Paper Award for her work “All Is (Not) Fair in Personalized Pricing: Antecedents and Outcomes of Consumer Fairness Perceptions”.

The third and last conference day – chaired by Stefan Bechtold, Imke Reimers, and again Christian Peukert – covered a wide range of innovation-related topics, including “IP & Gender”, trademark and patent law, and a final presentation on innovation in the cannabis market. David L. Schwartz, Frederic P. Vose Professor of Law at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, gave a keynote presentation on the topic “When Companies Choose Inside Counsel: A Case Study from Patents”.

On behalf of the organizers, we would like to thank all speakers, discussants, and attendees  for a fascinating Munich Summer Institute 2023. We are already looking forward to the Munich Summer Institute 2024, which will take place from 22 to 24 May 2024!

More information on the MSI website.

The Conference addressed the importance of technology transfer and regional innovation for Latin American countries to develop their great potential for the production of renewable energies in an economically sustainable manner.What are the challenges and the appropriate regulatory frameworks to achieve these objectives? Innovative companies and specialists in regulation from different areas of the renewable energy sector discussed these issues in the first Conference panel.
 

Based on its results, academics from different Latin American countries discussed in the second and third panels the need for regulatory adjustments in the fields of technology transfer contracts and competition law.

Reto Hilty hold a talk at the inauguration of the local Observatory and at the opening of the Conference. Pedro Henrique D. Batista, Research Fellow at the Institute, moderated the first panel of the Conference.

For the sixth time now, the two-day event is organized by Ph.D. students and Postdocs of the Department for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research headed by Dietmar Harhoff to give young scholars the opportunity to present their work.

The RISE6 Workshop on 18/19 December 2023 aims at stimulating a rigorous in-depth discussion of a selected number of research papers by Ph.D. students and Junior Postdocs, providing feedback and connecting with peers from other research institutions.

Keynote speaker of the RISE6 Workshop is Ina Ganguli (UMass Amherst).

Get the Call for Papers.

See RISE6 Workshop Website.

The goal of the Munich Summer Institute is to stimulate a rigorous in-depth discussion of a select number of research papers and to strengthen the interdisciplinary international research community in these areas. Researchers in economics, law, management and related fields at all stages of their career attend the Munich Summer Institute as presenters in a plenary or a poster session, as discussants or as attendants. The MSI features three keynote lectures, 12 plenary presentations, and a daily poster session including a poster slam.

The Munich Summer Institute focuses on quantitative empirical research. It is jointly organized by ETH Zurich, HEC Lausanne,LMU Munich, the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Northeastern University, and TUM.

More information on the MSI website.

Originally launched in Turin, the workshop location rotates between major European research locations such as the Centre for Research on Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Bath (2018), the GREThA at the Université de Bordeaux-CNRS (2019), and KU Leuven in (2022). Already in 2020, the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition hosted the 14th WOEPSR. However, it could only take place online due to the coronavirus pandemic. Next year, the workshop is set to return to its founding institution, the University of Turin.

The organizing team of WOEPSR 2023 included Dietmar Harhoff, Michael E. Rose, and Elisabeth Hofmeister from the Max Planck Institute of Innovation and Competition. Joint organizers were Hanna Hottenrott, Thomas Schaper, and Julian Schwierzy from TUM.

This year’s workshop was finally held in person again. Everyone markedly enjoyed the personal exchange over the course of the workshop: recurring participants reunited, while aspiring researchers had an excellent opportunity to network within this enthusiastic community.

The 18 presentations in five sessions over two days were very well received by up to 60 participants. A particular highlight was the panel discussion themed “AI and Science” that included panelists from both industry and academia. The audience could engage in an in-depth discussion of what AI changes in science ‒ and what remains untouched.

The Topics at a Glance

The first day started with presentations on the role of universities in coordinating scientific research as well as the impact of the working language in research institutions on attracting scientific talent. In the second session, presenters investigated the effects of different political shocks on scientists’ productivity as well as the ties between domestic and foreign scientists. The day continued with questions related to different ways of research funding, such as grant schemes and procurement measures. In the last session, presenters examined the search process of scientists as well as the impact of advisor relationships on individual careers.

As a tribute to the late Paul A. David, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, the first day concluded with a memorial session. Paul, who sadly passed away earlier this year, was not only a pivotal scholar in the economics of scientific progress and technical change, but an esteemed and long-standing member of the WOEPSR scientific committee. Many friends and family members attended the session, both in person and online, to share their personal memories.

In honor of Paul David’s contributions to this field, the “2023 WOEPSR Award in Memory of Paul A. David” was presented to Dror Shvadron for his work “Bread Upon the Waters: Corporate Science and the Benefits from Follow-on Public Research”. The award will be given annually to a young economist under the age of 40 or within less than 10 years of receiving a doctoral degree.

The second day began with two presentations on the benefits of publicly funded research. The final session of the workshop titled “AI in Science and Innovation” took up questions from the panel discussion. Presenters not only investigated how AI can act as a manager in science projects, but also showed how novel AI applications can be used to better measure two common concepts in the economics of science: the impact of science and the origin of ideas.

See the complete program with all topics here.

More information on the workshop website and further impressions on Twitter under #woepsr2023.

We thank all organizing parties involved as well as all participants, speakers and discussants for a truly exceptional and inspiring workshop and look forward to WOEPSR 2024 in Turin.

The roundtable was organized by Liudmyla Petrenko, Daria Kim, and Oksana Kashyntseva, and focused on health-related policies and regulations in Ukraine.

The speakers represented a wide range of institutions, including the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, the Kyiv National Economic University, the Ukrainian Association for Clinical Research, the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine, and the Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University.

The Ukrainian Pharmaceutical Industry: Strategic and Industrial Policy Perspectives

In the first panel, moderated by Dietmar Harhoff, the discussion focused on the high rate of pre-war development of the industry, its potential, and the devastation of the first year of the war.

Ukrainian pharma has over 100 years of history. The first industrial pharmaceutical production was established in Kharkiv in 1907. During Soviet times, approximately 70 % of the industrial pharmaceutical and research capacity of the Soviet Union was concentrated in Ukraine. In the year before the war, Ukraine’s pharmaceutical market totaled over 3.6 billion USD. The pharmacy segment accounted for 3.2 billion USD, while the hospital segment accounted for 0.4 billion USD.

As of today, 1,400 buildings in Ukraine have been damaged or destroyed, including 574 health care facilities. The majority are primary, emergency, and specialized care institutions. According to preliminary estimates, the cost of reconstruction is about 1 billion USD. Correspondingly, the Ukrainian pharmaceutical market losses in 2022 compared to 2021 amounted to 22.4 % in physical terms (units of drugs), 26.7 % in monetary terms, and 19.2 % in pharmacies, of which nearly 4,000 were closed. As a consequence, the access to medicine was disrupted all over Ukraine.

Drug Research and Development in Ukraine

The second panel, moderated by Anastasiia Lutsenko, focused on clinical trials.

Clinical research before the war had a significant economic impact. Every year, Ukraine’s share of patients in clinical trials was 2 % of the global patient pool (30,000 active participants in 500 studies), which is a great share for such a small country. In the five years before the start of the war, the number of new clinical studies increased by a factor of 2.5, the number research sites grew by 20 % and the number of active researchers in the field by 44 %.

The plan for restoring the Ukrainian health care system from the consequences of the war for the next decade provides for exemption from VAT on imports of medicines for clinical trials, tax, and other incentives for companies involved in conducting clinical trials, the development of the research infrastructure and research potential, and the introduction of an insurance system for clinical research in the form of compensation for possible damages to all participants in clinical trials.

A Regulatory Framework Outlook for the Ukrainian Pharmaceutical Sector

The presenters of the third panel, moderated by Daria Kim, criticized the practice of pharmaceutical marketing in Ukraine.

They accused the inadequate approach of pharmaceutical and medical professionals in performing their duties, for example, by promoting products that are either dangerous to patients or without proper therapeutic effect to receive an improper benefit. They also addressed the monopolization of pharmacy activity, which is carried out in covert form and results in significant price increases for pharmaceutical products, and the adulteration of pharmaceutical products.

The tacit support of monopolization of pharmacy activities by the state, especially by local governments, and the creation of pharmacy mega-chains has led to minimization of economic competition and abuse of monopoly power. The state’s tacit consent to the development of marketing agreements in the pharmaceutical market has increased the cost of medicines. Comparison with prices in reference countries has shown that, before the war, prices for pharmaceutical products in Ukraine were inflated by 40 % due to the use of marketing agreements.

Perspectives on Intellectual Property in the Pharmaceutical Industry in Ukraine

The last panel, moderated by Reto M. Hilty, showed that Ukraine has significant production capacities with about 120 pharmaceutical companies, which offers options for further cooperation between Ukraine and the European Union:

• Contract manufacturing for major international producers of medicines, transfer of new technologies and production of innovative pharmaceuticals (to supply the markets of the EU, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and Middle East and North Africa)
• Integration of Ukraine into reduced supply chains through the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) for the needs of the EU
• Production of mRNA-based vaccines in Ukraine
• Guarantee of uninterrupted supply of generic medicines (by replacing supplies from China and India)
• Conducting clinical trials in Ukraine to replace the Russian market, where trials are now suspended by most international companies due to international sanctions.

The roundtable ended with appeals to the EU and international partners to develop and implement programs to encourage international companies to cooperate on technology transfer and the localization of drug production in Ukraine, and to make use of the country’s logistical advantages. It was also suggested to create financial support programs for the development of API production in Ukraine. The regulatory barriers for the export of Ukrainian medicines to the EU should be simplified through the implementation of special inspection procedures to ensure good manufacturing practice (GMP) following EU GMP standards, and special inspection procedures for the domestic market of Ukraine (PIC/S GMP standards) as well. This should be accompanied by the establishment of training programs and the appropriate validation of inspectors issuing certificates according to EU GMP standards for Ukrainian producers.

We thank all speakers and participants, especially our guests from Ukraine, as well as the organizers for their valuable contributions, and look forward to further Roundtables to help rebuild Ukraine for a properous future.

See the full program with all speakers and their affiliations, and all topics.

To the short review of the first exploratory roundtable held on 1 December 2022.