Releasing the brakes: Europe’s opportunity in the innovation race

I would have moved much faster. By today’s standards, we could have progressed twice as quickly in the first ten years. Back then, we approached everything primarily from within the university system. Today, we know that courage, ambition and scale are crucial. How many students and founders do we reach? How many teams do we enable? How many start-ups do we bring into programmes and onto the market? We could have accelerated that growth much earlier.

A start-up centre is also a business: its role is to train and enable as many people as possible, bring founding teams together with customers and investors, and open up global markets for them. Today, around three companies are founded through UnternehmerTUM every week, and our start-ups attract about 40 million euros in venture capital each week. That pace would once have been unimaginable.

A global mindset. At Stanford, many founders look to Google or Nvidia as role models. They set out to become world leaders in their markets. We need to raise Europe’s level of ambition. Our teams rarely fail: 85 percent succeed. But the real question is how quickly and how far they can scale internationally.

Stanford treats innovation and startups as a core priority alongside research and teaching, and that commitment is deeply embedded in its culture. It also has enormous resources. Europe has fewer resources, so it must use them more intelligently and efficiently. That is precisely what we are trying to do in Munich: build a structured startup factory under one roof that can still compete at the highest level.

Europe has fewer resources, so it must use them more intelligently and efficiently.

Munich combines excellent research with a strong industrial base that includes Siemens, BMW, Airbus and many others. Deep-tech companies in particular depend on complex value chains, hardware expertise and customers who understand technologically sophisticated products. This breadth and depth give Munich an enormous competitive advantage.

Both. The number of start-ups created in Germany rose by 50 percent in the first half of 2026. Yet the brakes remain on in many areas: there is too little growth capital, too much regulation and an overly bureaucratic labour market. Remove those barriers, and many more start-ups could emerge.

Because the conditions are not right. Leadership teams often lack sufficient ambition, while US capital markets support much larger financing rounds, expansion and acquisitions. Europeans need to back their own entrepreneurs again. If we do not invest in them, American or Asian investors will – and we will later wonder why those companies are no longer European-owned. The potential is there: high-tech companies from Germany and across Europe can still succeed in global markets.

The potential is there: high-tech companies from Germany and across Europe can still succeed in global markets.

All of us. Savers must consider where they invest their money. Young people must decide whether they want to take responsibility and build something significant. Policymakers must create a competitive framework. No single person can fix this; it requires action across society. If we fail, we will all bear the consequences: less value creation, lower prosperity and a decline in living standards.

It is the shared mindset. Executives, founders, business owners, experts and investors talk to one another, join forces and contribute where they can. Then there are success stories: Celonis, Flixbus, Isar Aerospace, Proxima Fusion and Quantum Systems. Successful founders reinvest their capital, expertise and networks in the next generation. This virtuous cycle allows the ecosystem to move quickly.

Europe is our home. Our families live here, talented people work here, and we want to enjoy prosperity and a good quality of life here – so we have to work hard to secure both. Europe has also become much more closely integrated. Our teams draw people from many countries; aerospace companies test in Sweden and launch in Norway; and founders come from Austria, Hungary and elsewhere. This cross-border cooperation is a genuine advantage.

First, we must restructure our capital markets to support innovation as effectively as possible. Second, we need a labour market that enables and rewards high performance. People who want to give their all should not be held back. Third, Germany and Europe need a clear technology strategy: a high-tech agenda designed at European level and implemented consistently.

Germany and Europe need a clear technology strategy: a high-tech agenda designed at European level and implemented consistently.

We should allow greater flexibility. I am not saying that everyone should work 80 hours a week. But why stop people who genuinely want to do so and achieve more? We also need tax incentives that make it worthwhile to create value. And when highly skilled people from all over the world want to drive innovation here, our response should be: great to have you here. Here is your work permit – get started.

It is less a statement than the moralising tone Europe often adopts towards China or the US. We should focus more on creating value ourselves, judge less and learn more. If we listen, we can learn an enormous amount from China and the US.

That it has produced a global success story: a company such as BioNTech that solves major problems and changes the world. Europe has the talent to achieve extraordinary things – if we give people the freedom and support to do so.