{"id":457,"date":"2026-05-10T18:55:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T16:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/futurewisecompany.com\/?p=457"},"modified":"2026-05-12T15:31:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T13:31:35","slug":"zukunft-der-industriellen-wirtschaft-warum-deutschland-jetzt-auf-radikale-innovation-setzen-muss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/futurewisecompany.com\/en\/future-of-the-industrial-economy-why-germany-must-now-bet-on-radical-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"Carina St\u00f6ttner at the LEON Congress Hesse: in conversation with Hesse's Deputy Minister-President, generals, and CEOs"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\nPhoto: Jana Kay. From left: Brigadier General Holger Radmann, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Guido H. Baltes (moderator), Christoph Bernius (Divisional Board Member Cyber Risk, Commerzbank AG), Kaweh Mansoori (Minister of Economic Affairs), Carina St\u00f6ttner (CEO Futurewise Company), Alexander Laukenmann (Senior Executive VP Fraport), Peter R. Manolopoulos (CEO Schunk Group).<\/em>\r\n\r\n\r\nA look back at the closing keynote by futures researcher Carina St\u00f6ttner at LEON 2026 \u2013 and what she had to say about the future of industrial work, resilience, and the risks of overcorrected protectionism.<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\r\nIt is already past 5 p.m. at the Casals Forum in Kronberg. A long day of the congress lies behind the roughly one hundred decision-makers from business, science, politics, and the German armed forces. The day’s major themes \u2013 resilience, security, transformation financing, the Mittelstand as an anchor of stability \u2013 have been drawn out. Introduced by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Guido H. Baltes, Carina St\u00f6ttner<\/strong> takes the stage and poses the question: where could German industry and the economy develop in the future?\r\n\r\n\r\nSt\u00f6ttner is a futures researcher \u2013 not a forecaster who extends charts into the next ten years, but someone who works with companies, ministries, and educational institutions to make desired futures concrete. Her closing keynote “The Future of Industrial Work” was not a full stop, but a starting signal: for a debate that has been conducted too technocratically in Germany for too long \u2013 and now needs a direction.\r\n\r\n\r\n

Resilience is not defense \u2013 but the ability to build the future<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\nThroughout the day, resilience<\/strong> had been the leitmotif of LEON 2026. Minister of Economic Affairs Kaweh Mansoori had declared it the “decisive prerequisite for competitiveness.” St\u00f6ttner picked up the term \u2013 and turned it around.\r\n\r\n\r\nResilience, as the thrust of her keynote went, is not the attempt to defend a status quo against an uncertain world. Resilience is the ability to remain capable of action despite \u2013 and with the help of \u2013 disruptive change, and to shape desirable futures<\/strong>. Those who understand resilience merely as a protective shield build bunkers. Those who understand it as the capacity to shape things build platforms.\r\n\r\n\r\nThis set the frame for the keynote’s two major thematic strands: deeptech and radical innovation<\/strong> on the one side, education and the work of the future<\/strong> on the other.\r\n\r\n\r\n

Deeptech and radical innovation: Germany’s real question of competitiveness as a location<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\nGermany has an innovation paradox. Strong in research, strong in patents, strong in its Mittelstand \u2013 and yet behind the USA and China in many key technologies. St\u00f6ttner delivered a diagnosis for this that resonated in the room: We have perfected incremental innovation, but have structurally weaned ourselves off radical innovation<\/strong>.\r\n\r\n\r\nDeeptech<\/strong> \u2013 that is, technologies with high scientific risk and a long development horizon, from quantum computing through synthetic biology to new energy and materials systems \u2013 requires different conditions than the optimizing innovation in which German industry grew large:\r\n\r\n\r\n
    \r\n \t
  • \r\n
      \r\n \t
    • Longer capital horizons<\/strong> than the typical German financing mix offers today<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n
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      • \r\n
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        • A higher tolerance for failure<\/strong>, both within companies and in the logic of public funding<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n
            \r\n \t
          • \r\n
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            • Closer interlocking of cutting-edge research and industrial scaling<\/strong>, as well as international cooperation<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n
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              • \r\n
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                • Talent that thinks across disciplines<\/strong> and can move between lab, code, and factory floor<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
                  \r\n
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                  Fotografie Kim<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n
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                  Fotografie Kim<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n
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                  Fotografie Kim<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n
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                  Fotografie Kim<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n

                  The trade-offs of protectionism: When resilience becomes a cage<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\nSt\u00f6ttner devoted perhaps the most delicate part of her keynote to a question that is often circumvented in the current industrial-policy discourse: What happens when protectionism becomes too drastic?<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\r\nResilience and sovereignty are legitimate, even compelling, goals. But they have a downside that must be named in honest industrial policy:\r\n\r\n\r\n
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                  • \r\n
                      \r\n \t
                    • Loss of innovation through isolation.<\/strong> Those who reorganize critical intermediate products on a purely national basis pay not only higher unit costs, but also lose the competitive pressure and knowledge exchange<\/strong> that drives innovation. Closed systems age faster than open ones.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n
                        \r\n \t
                      • \r\n
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                        • Strategic costs of the subsidy spiral.<\/strong> Every industry kept in the country by subsidy ties up resources that are then lacking elsewhere. Where investment goes into the production of efficient commodities, capacities no longer suffice for new high technologies. Industrial policy is always also an allocation decision against alternative futures.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n
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                          • \r\n
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                            • Reciprocity risks.<\/strong> Protective measures provoke protective measures. An exporting nation like Germany loses structurally more<\/strong> in an escalating protectionism spiral – in social prosperity and in growth.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n
                                \r\n \t
                              • \r\n
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                                • Democratic erosion.<\/strong> When “strategic industries” become a permanent category, the entanglements between the state and corporations grow, weakening competition and renewal in the long term.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nSt\u00f6ttner’s plea was not a naive call for free trade, but a plea for measure<\/strong>: resilience where it is relevant to security and not otherwise attainable \u2013 and openness everywhere else, because openness remains the true source of innovation and prosperity. The desirable future lies not in maximal self-sufficiency, but in smart, partnership-based sovereignty<\/strong>.\r\n\r\n\r\n

                                  What remains: Three imperatives for the next decade<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\nFrom St\u00f6ttner’s keynote, three imperatives can be distilled that apply to any industrial and economic location \u2013 and to Hesse in particular:\r\n\r\n\r\n
                                    \r\n \t
                                  1. \r\n
                                      \r\n \t
                                    1. Bet on deeptech and radical innovation.<\/strong> Incremental improvement is a mandatory exercise, no longer a competitive advantage. The real challenge is: financing, organizing, and scaling technologies with a ten- to fifteen-year horizon now.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n\r\n\r\n
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                                      1. \r\n
                                          \r\n \t
                                        1. Think about education and work from the perspective of the life course.<\/strong> Not curricula, but learning architectures. Not qualification as a project, but learning as infrastructure.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n\r\n\r\n
                                            \r\n \t
                                          1. \r\n
                                              \r\n \t
                                            1. Balance resilience and openness.<\/strong> Sovereignty where it is indispensable. Openness everywhere else \u2013 as a source of innovation, talent, and economic strength.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

                                              About the congress: LEON 2026 in Kronberg, Hesse<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\nOn 6 May 2026, representatives from business, science, politics, and security institutions came together at the Casals Forum Wiesbaden for the new Hessian economic and industrial congress LEON<\/strong>. The leitmotif: resilience as the decisive question of competitiveness for the 21st century.<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\r\nThree brackets held the day together:\r\n\r\n\r\n
                                                \r\n \t
                                              • \r\n
                                                  \r\n \t
                                                • Resilience becomes a question of competitiveness<\/strong> \u2013 in the face of fragile supply chains, geopolitical tensions, and rising energy and security requirements.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n
                                                    \r\n \t
                                                  • \r\n
                                                      \r\n \t
                                                    • Industry, innovation, and security<\/strong> can no longer be thought of separately. Key technologies such as AI or new materials have civilian and<\/em> security-relevant applications.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n
                                                        \r\n \t
                                                      • \r\n
                                                          \r\n \t
                                                        • From a problem of insight to a problem of implementation.<\/strong> “We do not have a problem of insight, but rather a task of implementation,” Minister of Economic Affairs Kaweh Mansoori put it in his opening remarks.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

                                                          The keynotes and impulses at a glance<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n
                                                            \r\n \t
                                                          • \r\n
                                                              \r\n \t
                                                            • Kaweh Mansoori<\/strong>, Hessian Minister of Economic Affairs \u2013 Opening<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n
                                                                \r\n \t
                                                              • \r\n
                                                                  \r\n \t
                                                                • Prof. Marcel Fratzscher (DIW Berlin)<\/strong> \u2013 Keynote: “After Us, the Future. A New Generational Contract for Freedom, Security, and Opportunity”<\/em><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n
                                                                    \r\n \t
                                                                  • \r\n
                                                                      \r\n \t
                                                                    • Peter R. Manolopoulos (CEO Schunk Group)<\/strong> \u2013 “What Makes Us Strong: Resilience in the Industrial Mittelstand”<\/em><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n
                                                                        \r\n \t
                                                                      • \r\n
                                                                          \r\n \t
                                                                        • Hans-Dieter Kemler (Member of the Board, Helaba)<\/strong> \u2013 “Transformation Financing in Germany \u2013 Hesse Leads the Way”<\/em><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n
                                                                            \r\n \t
                                                                          • \r\n
                                                                              \r\n \t
                                                                            • Alexander Laukenmann (Senior Executive VP Fraport) stepped in for<\/strong> Dr. Pierre Dominique Pr\u00fcmm <\/strong>(Member of the Board, Aviation, Fraport AG)<\/strong> \u2013 “Rethinking Resilience: How Aviation Shapes the Future in Turbulent Times”<\/em><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n
                                                                                \r\n \t
                                                                              • \r\n
                                                                                  \r\n \t
                                                                                • Christoph Bernius (Divisional Board Member Cyber Risk, Commerzbank AG)<\/strong> \u2013 “Cyber Resilience: Europe’s Path to Security and Economic Strength”<\/em><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n
                                                                                    \r\n \t
                                                                                  • \r\n
                                                                                      \r\n \t
                                                                                    • Dr. Kai Beckmann (CEO Merck KGaA)<\/strong> \u2013 Video message on the future of Merck<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n
                                                                                        \r\n \t
                                                                                      • \r\n
                                                                                          \r\n \t
                                                                                        • Defence Panel<\/strong> with Major General Wolf-J\u00fcrgen Stahl (President, BAKS), Thomas Mail\u00e4nder (EDAG), Daniel Zittel (Daimler Truck), Prof. Dr. Andreas Glas (UniBw Munich), Dr. Hans Christoph Atzpodien (BDSV), and Brigadier General Holger Radmann (Landeskommando Hesse): “Why We Need Strong Cooperation Between the Bundeswehr, Business, and Innovation”<\/em><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n
                                                                                            \r\n \t
                                                                                          • \r\n
                                                                                              \r\n \t
                                                                                            • Nathalia Schomerus (Legal Innovation Lead, Legora)<\/strong> \u2013 “Security and Resilience of German Industry with Regard to Cybersecurity”<\/em><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n
                                                                                                \r\n \t
                                                                                              • \r\n
                                                                                                  \r\n \t
                                                                                                • Hesse’s industrial frontrunners<\/strong> \u2013 Presentation of six outstanding Hessian companies: JUMO, Energiesysteme Gro\u00df, Vacuumschmelze, Ponticon, Stephan Schmidt KG, and Alexander Binzel Schweisstechnik \/ Abicor Group<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n
                                                                                                    \r\n \t
                                                                                                  • \r\n
                                                                                                      \r\n \t
                                                                                                    • Carina St\u00f6ttner<\/strong>, futures researcher \u2013 Closing keynote: “The Future of Industrial Work”<\/em><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe stage program was complemented by 13 breakout sessions<\/strong> on topics such as reducing bureaucracy, cybersecurity, sustainable industry, transformation financing, and security-policy cooperation \u2013 as well as a poetic-musical wrap-up at the close.\r\n\r\n\r\nLEON is designed as a long-term platform. It sees itself, in Mansoori’s words, as the prelude to a dialogue meant to shape the years ahead: “The future of Hesse as a location for innovation and industry is being decided now.”<\/strong>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                                                                                                      Resilience is not defense \u2013 but the ability to build the future. At LEON 2026 in Kronberg, futures researcher Carina St\u00f6ttner closed the congress with a keynote that reframed the day’s central theme. Resilience, she argued, is not the attempt to defend a status quo against an uncertain world, but the ability to remain capable of action amid disruptive change and to shape desirable futures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":463,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[74,84,86,68,82,85,80,78,65,72,69,89,79,76,75,87,64,83,70,67,81,66,71,88,77,73,7],"class_list":["post-457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-bildung-der-zukunft","tag-bundeswehr-und-industrie","tag-cyberresilienz","tag-deeptech","tag-defence-industry","tag-freihandel-vs-souveraenitaet","tag-geopolitische-resilienz","tag-hidden-champions","tag-industriepolitik-deutschland","tag-ki-und-arbeit","tag-lebenslanges-lernen","tag-leon-kongress","tag-lieferketten","tag-mensch-ki-kollaboration","tag-mittelstand","tag-protektionismus-trade-offs","tag-radikale-innovation","tag-sicherheitspolitik-wirtschaft","tag-standort-hessen","tag-technologische-souveraenitaet","tag-transformationsfinanzierung","tag-wirtschaftliche-souveraenitaet","tag-wirtschaftsstandort-deutschland","tag-wuenschenswerte-zukunft","tag-zukunft-der-arbeit","tag-zukunft-der-wirtschaft","tag-zukunftsforschung"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t