Presentation: Chiara Criscuolo, OECD
Discussion:
Sandra Detzer, Bundestag
Bernhard Ganglmair, ZEW Mannheim
Alexander Glätzle, Planqc
Alexander Schiersch, DIW
Moderated by: Nicola Brandt, OECD Berlin Centre
Concluding with a light lunch and networking from 1:00 – 2:00 pm.
Well-designed industrial policies can help build innovation ecosystems in emerging sectors by providing enabling infrastructure, creating early demand, and overcoming coordination failures that often hinder new industries. By helping firms reach scale, they can accelerate innovation and competitiveness. Yet industrial policy is fraught with challenges. Political support often flows more easily to established industries with large workforces than to nascent sectors with greater long-term potential. Governments may struggle to identify the most promising technologies, and even more so to withdraw support when results fall short. Without national and international coordination, industrial policy can also trigger costly and inefficient subsidy races. The OECD has developed a framework for industrial policies that promote innovation, productivity, resilience, and competition while limiting market distortions and undue support for incumbents. Drawing on international experience, this panel explores how to design industrial policies that remain compatible with open markets, target high-potential technologies, and provide clear performance criteria for continued support. Experts will discuss strategic priorities, governance, implementation, evaluation, and the effective use of policy instruments to help new industries become globally competitive.
Successful industrial strategies require well-designed policies that coordinate many areas, ranging from trade, competition, technology and innovation policies to standards setting, regulation and skill development. The Berlin-based DIW-OECD Industrial Strategy Dialogues bring together key stakeholders from policy, business and think-tanks to discuss cutting-edge research and what works for Germany, Europe, and their global partners.