The AiF - promoting innovative medium-sized enterprises
The AiF is the German Federation of Industrial Research Associations. The central concern of this registered non-profit association is the promotion of applied Research and Development (R&D) for the benefit of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). Organized by industry, the AiF supports the efficient usage and advancement of R&D-programmes in order to increase the competitive strength of SME. To this end, the AiF has created a unique infrastructure, comprising an industry-based innovations network covering over 100 industrial research associations, with approx. 50,000 SME, and about 700 associated research institutions. Within this structure, the AiF's two offices in Cologne and Berlin provide practice-driven innovation consultancy promoting R&D on a national and, increasingly, an international scale. Since its foundation in 1954 the AiF has been a competent partner to the government - currently the Federal Ministries of Economics and Technoloy (BMWi) and of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Ministry of Innovation, Science, Research and Technology of the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia - functioning as a bridge between industry and science within the framework of various R&D-programmes. The AiF acts as an agency for the promotion of R&D for small and medium-sized enterprises in two ways: on the one hand, it lays the foundations for industrial collective research for the benefit of entire industrial sectors; and on the other hand, the AiF acts as a programme managing executive for governmental R&D-support-measures for the benefit of individual companies and Universities of Applied Sciences (Fachhochschulen). Overall, the AiF has an annual budget of more than 300 million Euro of public funds.
For further information:
Handbook 2005
The English Handbook briefly describes the activities of the AiF and includes short portraits of the AiF´s member associations.
Download Handbook
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