Prof. Dr. Katharina Hölzle discussed the lack of entrepreneurial spirit in Germany with experts from medicine and science on the Health Panel. Start-ups in Germany are rewarded predominantly for small improvements of established ideas. For example, she said, the Federal Republic does not understand the growing uncertainty in the environment as a challenge to be taken up with passion. Sentences like "Try it out! Do something new!" are seldom uttered in the Federal Republic. In comparison to the U.S., start-up failure in Germany is less tolerable. Prof. Dr. Katharina Hölzle criticizes: "The players in the system do not see eye-to-eye. There has to be trust in science, business and society that you don't do anything bad with the money, but try to do something better - even with the risk of falling down." Further, "the climate for science and startup has deteriorated. We are a society that has been extremely polarized toward security over the last 15 years. We are not good at trying something new."
In addition to Prof. Dr. Katharina Hölzle, the panelists were
Prof. Dr. Dr. Alexander S. Kekulé (Virologist and Epidemiologist Uniklinik Halle)
Prof. Dr. Karl Lauterbach (SPD health expert)
Prof. Dr. Jochen Maas (Managing Director Sanofi Germany)
Prof. Dr. Frank Ulrich Montgomery (Chairman of the Board World Medical Association)
and Matthias Weber (Chief Financial Officer Hexal).
You can access the recording here (German).
