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Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - With 120 million euros, the state government wants to network medical and research locations in Baden-Württemberg more closely and make them internationally more competitive.
To do this, it is investing in the network of university medicine in the state and in an innovation campus Rhine-Neckar.
The fight against the corona pandemic clearly demonstrated the importance of a strong health system and a good biomedical research landscape, said Science Minister Theresia Bauer (Greens) on Tuesday in Stuttgart.
It is important to implement research results as quickly as possible, she added with a view to the development of the corona vaccine.
Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) emphasized: "The bundling of forces is crucial to make the health sector in the country even stronger and to make it crisis-proof."
80 million euros are earmarked for the network of all medical faculties in the state in Heidelberg, Tübingen, Freiburg and Ulm.
At the end of February they are to be brought together under the umbrella of the “University Medicine Baden-Württemberg” association.
It should identify and implement projects for cooperation in research, teaching and care.
Bauer said that the competition between the university locations had to be brought into balance with the idea of cooperation - without having to lose one's own priorities.
The cabinet provided an initial partial amount of 60 million euros.
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40 million euros are allocated to a “lighthouse” project with the planned new Heidelberg-Mannheim large hospital as well as the German Cancer Research Center, the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, the Central Institute for Mental Health and the Mannheim Fraunhofer project group for automation in medicine and biotechnology.
Business enterprises in this area should also be brought on board.
Funding focuses on projects in the fight against common diseases such as cancer, diabetes, infections, cardiovascular and lung diseases.
The cooperation also makes it easier to acquire third-party funding from the federal government and the EU, says Bauer.
It will also make the country more attractive for courted experts.
A first tranche of 18 million euros has been released.
The model for the Rhein-Neckar innovation campus is the “Cyber Valley” science location in Tübingen, under whose umbrella a research network has been working on artificial intelligence (AI) since 2016.
Business partners, including Amazon, Daimler and Bosch, the universities of Stuttgart and Tübingen and the Max Planck Institute, are also involved in its financing.
A new lead industry is to be established with the close interlinking of health care, research, teaching and the transfer of scientific results into application.
So far, the automobile industry has been regarded as the leading industry in the southwest.
The projects are not a flash in the pan and the basis for the economy to earn “good money”, said the minister.
PM