Germany

The COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war have revealed vulnerabilities in Germany’s economic model: undiversified energy supply, an over-reliance on fossil fuels, delayed digitalisation and disruptable supply chains. Digital technologies may significantly disrupt manufacturing industries Germany has dominated for decades, threatening future competitiveness. The green transition also requires significant industrial transformations. Germany can call upon one of the world’s most advanced innovation systems in dealing with these challenges, but a new more agile and experimental approach to STI policy is needed. This Review outlines how to develop such an approach and what STI policies need to focus on: create markets for future innovations, more significant and more risk-tolerant finance for innovation, inter-disciplinary knowledge exchange, improved data infrastructure and capabilities. Given the internationally shared challenges of dealing with transitions, the insights presented in the review will be of interest to policymakers, stakeholders and analysts from Germany and across the OECD.

How can governments support the private sector’s contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? This book investigates the contribution of firms to the SDGs, particularly through their core business, taking into account inter-sectoral linkages and global value chains, using novel techniques and data sources. Despite the fact that the private sector has the potential to contribute to a wide range of SDGs, and that many firms find it economically viable to develop sustainable products and services, firms still face significant hurdles in their sustainability transition. Based on this new evidence, this book provides some recommendations on the design of industrial policies to enhance the contribution of businesses to the SDGs.

What does teaching look like? What practices are most impactful? By directly observing teaching in the classroom, this study trialled new research methods to shed light on these key questions for raising student outcomes around the world. This report provides a detailed account of classroom management, social and emotional support, and instructional practices in the classrooms of eight countries and economies, drawing upon the observation of lesson videos and instructional materials, the analysis of teacher and student questionnaires, and the measurement of students’ cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes.