???aural:Bildanfang??????Großansicht des Bildes???© Getty Images???aural:Bildende???

With the funding under the High-Tech Strategy, optical technologies/photonics have become one of the outstanding fields of German excellence worldwide over the last ten years. Optical technologies "Made in Germany" are key drivers in many industries – ranging from e. g. photovoltaic, electronics, mechanical engineering, semiconductor technologies to life science.

In 2010 the global turnover of optical technologies was about 250 billion Euros of which German companies held a nine percent share with an export ratio of nearly 70 percent. These around 1.000 predominantly medium-sized photonics enterprises show a sustainable annual growth rate of about eight percent. Optical technologies represent an impressive branch of industry with a current workforce of around 125,000 employees in Germany which is about to grow by another 20,000 until 2015.

A new study of the leveraging impact of photonics says that photonics technologies underpin at least ten percent of the European economy. Its enormous growth potential is mainly based on the innovation power as a result of well educated staff and investments in research and development (R&D) of 13.4 percent of the 2010 turnover. Due to this strong R&D focus the cooperation between science and industry is of highest importance for photonics.

This is why the photonics industry has committed itself to invest approximately 30 billion Euros in R&D over the next ten years in Germany, to create economic growth and jobs in Germany. Additionally the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research announced a new funding program on May the 23, 2011 in Munich, in that the federal government bounds itself to spend almost 1 billion Euro for R&D in Photonics over the next ten years.