The Fraunhofer contract-research model

• Kurzarbeit in the 2008-2009 crisis

  Germany answered the 2008-2009 collapse in manufacturing orders by paying firms to cut hours instead of jobs, and short-time work covered 1.44 million workers at the May 2009 peak, about 5 percent of insured employment, while unemployment barely rose.

• THW, volunteer civil protection as a federal institution

  Germany's federal civil-protection agency trains and equips a volunteer force that reached about 88,000 people across 669 local units in May 2025, supported by about 2,200 paid staff.

• Federal siren warning network, and its dismantling

  West Germany built a federal warning service after 1955; after the Cold War the federally owned service was dissolved, its ten warning offices were abandoned and the nationwide siren alarm network was dismantled or transferred to municipalities, ending a system that had relied on about 1,700 volunteer helpers.

• Public civil defence shelters, and their dismantling

  Germany held 1,967 public shelters with about 1.6 million places in 2008, decided with the states to abandon them, and decommissioned them until March 2022, leaving 579 shelters with 477,593 places, none of them functional or operational.

• Bildungsprämie training voucher, and its end

  The federal education ministry paid half the cost of job-related further training for lower-income workers through a voucher from December 2008, issued more than 400,000 vouchers, and stopped issuing them on 31 December 2021.

• Floating LNG import terminals of 2022

  After Russia's invasion of Ukraine the federal government chartered floating storage and regasification units, commissioned the first at Wilhelmshaven in December 2022, and by February 2023 expected to spend about 10 billion euros renting and running five units, against 2.94 billion euros of federal funding made available for four in May 2022.

• Aufstiegs-BAföG, upgrading training support

  Federal and state governments paid grants and loans to 186,100 people taking vocational upgrading courses such as master craftsman or certified educator in 2025, 3.8 times the 49,300 supported in 1997, with 1.1 billion euros approved.

• Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag (TAB)

  Since 1990 the German Bundestag has kept an Office of Technology Assessment, run under contract by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, whose tasks include horizon scanning of scientific and technological trends at early stages; by 2026 it reported more than 200 projects and over 400 publications.

• SINTEG-Verordnung, the energy-transition experimentation clause

  Germany's federal government ran a time-limited regulatory experimentation clause for the SINTEG smart-energy showcases from June 2017 to June 2022, under which the Federal Network Agency received 49 notifications of experiments but only two claims for compensation of regulatory costs.

• Dual vocational training (duale Ausbildung), and its contraction

  Germany's dual training system, in which firms employ apprentices under contracts registered by the chambers while state vocational schools teach them, recorded 475,950 new training contracts in the year to 30 September 2025, down from 569,379 in 2011, while 54,372 offered places stayed unfilled.

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• EMBRAPII, industry-led applied research

  Created in 2013, EMBRAPII funds industrial research that companies contract with accredited public and private research units, and it contracted a record 811 new projects in 2025, 25.35% more than in 2024.

• SIBRATEC, the national technology networks

  To foster university-firm interaction, the Federal Government set up SIBRATEC, coordinated by the Ministry of Science and Technology with FINEP, BNDES and INMETRO taking part, as a national system of 56 research and development networks by 2010: 14 innovation-centre networks, 20 technological-service networks and 22 state-level extension networks.

• Knowledge Transfer Partnerships

  UKRI reported more than 1,000 Knowledge Transfer Partnerships running at one time and more than 1,100 Associate projects in May 2026, joining businesses with universities or other research organisations through jointly supervised innovation work.

• Cooperative Research Centres programme

  Australia's Department of Industry reported that its Cooperative Research Centres portfolio facilitated 304 businesses establishing research-focused collaborations in 2023–24, across 114 CRC and 190 CRC Projects partners, above the year's target of 248.

• Portugal's CoLAB applied-research network

  Portugal's Agência Nacional de Inovação reported 41 recognized Collaborative Laboratories (CoLABs), and its 2024 innovation report recorded 639 highly qualified staff contracted by CoLABs, 32 percent of them PhDs.

• TÜBİTAK 1505 university–industry support programme

  TÜBİTAK's 1505 University–Industry Collaboration Support Programme received 116 project applications and began support for 59 projects in 2024, with 52 fellows working across the collaboration pipeline.

• ANII Alianzas para la Innovación

  Uruguay's national research and innovation agency ANII began co-funding joint academia-firm projects through Alianzas para la Innovación in 2009 and had signed 29 such contracts, committing US$3.85 million and drawing US$1.71 million from firms, by 30 June 2016; in 2023 it approved 23 projects joining the productive sector and academia, matching the 2022 record.

• Doktorat wdrożeniowy (implementation doctorate) programme

  Poland's science ministry opened the implementation doctorate in the 2017/2018 academic year, funding doctoral candidates to do their research inside a firm or institution. In its first five editions 2,293 projects were approved, 479 people qualified for the sixth edition in 2022/2023, and 69.6 percent of the doctorates ran in the private sector.

• SFI Research Centres programme

  Science Foundation Ireland funded a network of 16 university-based research centres from 2013, whose cumulative SFI investment of €684 million was matched by €638 million of industry commitment by 2021 (Annual Report 2021), and which by the end of 2022 had signed 1,426 collaborative research agreements with 688 companies, 366 of them in Ireland.

• Strategic Centres for Science, Technology and Innovation (SHOKs), terminated in 2015

  Finland ran six Strategic Centres for Science, Technology and Innovation from 2008, company-form consortia of firms, universities and research institutes funded about 60 percent by Tekes, with funding of EUR 88 million in 2014; the Sipilä government's austerity programme ended the earmarked funding at the end of 2015 and the programme was closed, with the last Tekes-funded projects wound down between 2016 and 2018.

• Innosuisse innovation projects with implementation partners

  Innosuisse, the Swiss federal innovation agency, recorded CHF 113.95 million of contributions in 2025 to innovation projects in which a Swiss research institution works with a company or other implementation partner that bears 40 to 60 percent of the project cost, and held CHF 144.3 million of further commitments to such projects at the end of the year.

• Cifre industrial doctorates

  France's research ministry has funded Cifre industrial doctorates since 1981, paying an employer 42,000 euros over three years to hire a doctoral candidate whose thesis research is run in partnership with an academic laboratory; ANRT, which operates the scheme for the ministry, accepted 1,700 new Cifre in 2025 across 1,029 distinct employers.

• Competence Centres Programme (Kompetenscentrumprogrammet) 1995 to 2005

  Sweden's NUTEK, and later Vinnova and the Swedish Energy Agency, ran a ten-year programme from 1995 that built 28 competence centres at eight universities, each founded on a three-party contract between a university, a group of firms and the agency; more than 300 companies joined as contracting parties and industry put in 1.7 billion kronor between 1995 and 2005.

• Doctorados Industriales (State Research Agency industrial doctorates)

  Spain's State Research Agency funds four-year contracts for doctoral candidates employed in firms and other entities to write a thesis on an industrial research or experimental development project; in the 2024-2 call, resolved in October 2025, it awarded 65 grants worth 7.6 million euros.

• CRADLE, DOST's collaborative R&D grant for academe and companies

  From 2017 the Department of Science and Technology's CRADLE programme funded 82 projects in which a university or research institute did R&D on a problem set by a Filipino company, worth 373.6 million pesos and involving 36 HEIs or RDIs and 83 companies by early 2022.

• Public-Private Research Network (PPRN) matching grants

  Malaysia's Ministry of Higher Education approved 680 Public-Private Research Network projects involving 634 companies by the end of 2022, with a total allocation of RM27.7 million, and 469 of them had closed as successfully completed.

• TIA Technology Stations Programme, and its erosion

  South Africa's Technology Innovation Agency runs a network of university-based Technology Stations that gave 2,907 small firms science, engineering and technology services in 2024/25, against 3,167 at the five-year high in 2021/22, while the programme's budget fell from R105.9 million in 2020 to R93.98 million in 2025 and only 80 percent of the stations were operational.

• CORFO Programas y Consorcios Tecnológicos

  Chile's development agency CORFO had 49 technology programmes and consortia in execution during 2024, 38 technology programmes and 11 technology consortia, the consortia joining firms with universities and technology centres in multi-year R&D portfolios, after awarding six new consortia in 2023 with 1,500 million pesos of co-financing each.

• Manufacturing USA innovation institutes

  In fiscal 2023 the 16 reporting Manufacturing USA institutes, public-private consortia sponsored by the Departments of Commerce, Defense and Energy, managed 929 applied research and development projects and held 2,921 memberships, 655 of them universities, community colleges and other academic members alongside 1,315 small and 493 large manufacturers.

• Mitacs Accelerate research internships

  Mitacs, the federally and provincially funded not-for-profit, placed 4,859 students, recent graduates and postdoctoral fellows in Accelerate research internships with 2,314 host organisations under 2,406 professors in 2024-25, out of 20,885 internships across all its programmes that year.

• COI-NEXT, co-creation centres for industry, academia and government

  Japan Science and Technology Agency ran 42 COI-NEXT co-creation centres in April 2023, 30 full-scale and 12 in a development stage, most led by universities and some by national research institutes, which in fiscal 2022 counted 1,073 participating organisations, 256 universities and research institutes and 817 companies and others, with 2,566 participants from the company side.

• MAI/DAI, innovation scholarships for research with partner companies

  Brazil's research council CNPq, with CAPES co-funding the 2024 call, has run four calls of its Mestrado e Doutorado Acadêmico para Inovação programme (2018, 2020, 2022 and 2024), in which about 80 science and technology institutions and more than 200 companies had taken part and at least 5,000 scholarships had been granted by 2024 for undergraduate and graduate student research on projects defined with partner firms.

• NWO Perspectief, ended by the 2026 spring budget

  NWO's Perspectief programme, funded mainly by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, awarded 12 public-private technology consortia in 2025 with 46.4 million euros of subsidy, each joining at least three knowledge institutions with at least four companies or other users paying at least 30 percent of costs; the ministry's own page records that the last Perspectief round started in July 2026.

• Matching Fund Kedaireka university-industry matching grants

  Indonesia's Directorate General of Higher Education, Research and Technology funded 427 university-industry collaboration proposals through the Kedaireka Matching Fund in 2021, its first year, and 1,093 in 2022.

• Government Resolution 218 complex projects for high-tech production

  Under Government Resolution 218 of 9 April 2010, Russia's Ministry of Science and Higher Education subsidised 41 joint firm-university complex projects in their R&D stage in 2024, from the 14th and 15th selection rounds. Federal funding was 2.708 billion rubles, and firms put in 4.14 billion rubles of their own (156 percent of the budget funds). The ministry reports 161 technologies developed and handed over to production by January 2025.

• Collaborative Research and Innovation Grant Scheme (CRIGS)

  The Mauritius Research and Innovation Council's Collaborative Research and Innovation Grant Scheme, which co-funds projects led by a local company with a local academic or research institution, had completed 17 projects and had 14 more under way as at 30 June 2020, with 61.5 million rupees of private contribution to the completed ones.

• COMET, Competence Centers for Excellent Technologies

  Austria's COMET programme, run by the FFG for the federal ministries and co-funded by the Länder, had approved 81 competence centres and K-projects with eligible costs of 1,669.80 million euros by 30 March 2017, in which about 450 scientific partners and about 1,000 company partners cooperated, according to the Court of Audit.

• Centra kompetence, the Technology Agency's competence centres programme 2012 to 2019

  The Technology Agency of the Czech Republic funded 34 competence centres under its Centra kompetence programme from 2012, joining 334 participants, 115 research organisations, 118 SMEs and 101 large firms, against a planned 31 centres and 248 participants.

• Erhvervsforsker, the Industrial PhD and Industrial Postdoc programme

  Denmark's innovation fund (Danmarks Innovationsfond, formerly Innovationsfonden) awarded 138 Industrial Researcher grants in 2025, from 252 applications and for 147.4 million kroner, each funding a researcher employed by a company and enrolled at or supervised by a university.

• Dottorati innovativi con le imprese (PNRR M4C2 investment 3.3), XXXVIII cycle

  Italy's Ministry of University and Research funded 1,708 company co-financed innovative doctoral scholarships in the 38th doctoral cycle (academic year 2022/2023), against the 5,000 that decree 352/2022 had allocated for that year, and cut the measure's target from 15,000 scholarships and 450 million euros to 6,000 scholarships and 360 million euros.

• Inočekiai LT, innovation vouchers for SMEs to buy research services from universities and institutes

  Lithuania's Agency for Science, Innovation and Technology (MITA) funded 815 innovation-voucher projects in three calls from 2012 to 2014, in which small firms bought applied research, experimental development or feasibility services from universities and research institutes, and 776 of them were completed successfully.

• Kompetences centri, the industry competence centres programme

  Latvia's six industry competence centres, funded through the Investment and Development Agency with 53.2 million euros of ERDF money, had run 231 research projects involving 164 companies and 33 scientific partners by 31 December 2014, of which 78 were completed and 44 percent involved cooperation with scientific institutions.

• Senter for forskningsdrevet innovasjon (SFI), Centres for Research-based Innovation

  The Research Council of Norway allocated 354 million kroner in 2025 to its Centres for Research-based Innovation, eight-year consortia of research institutions, companies and public bodies whose business and public-sector partners must co-finance at least half the cost, and in December 2025 named eight new centres with 98 business partners and 22 public-sector partners.

• ANCD innovation vouchers (Vouchere Inovationale) for SME research services

  Moldova's National Agency for Research and Development (ANCD) financed 13 innovation voucher projects in 2025, in which small and medium firms buy research and development services from research organisations, after 28 applications to the 2025-2026 call yielded 10 funded projects and four funded projects were stopped when the firms declined to sign contracts.

• Proiect de transfer la operatorul economic (PTE) research-to-firm transfer grants

  Romania's research funding agency UEFISCDI accepted 35 firm-led projects with research organisation partners for funding in the 2024 PTE (transfer to the economic operator) competition, plus one more on a second list, after 47 in the 2021 competition.

• Innovation Fund Collaborative Grant Scheme (Program saradnje nauke i privrede)

  Serbia's Innovation Fund financed 79 joint research and development projects of private small and medium firms with public research organisations across eight calls of its Collaborative Grant Scheme, the eighth call, decided in 2024, funding eight.

• Innovation Consortia Matching Grant Program (Fostering Productive Innovation Project)

  Kazakhstan's innovation ministry (MDDIAI), through the Innovation Consortia Matching Grant Program of the World Bank financed Fostering Productive Innovation Project, had supported 33 technology consortia of research teams and firms, including 12 competence centres, by September 2024, whose first sales and signed contracts totalled about 17 billion tenge.

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