Siemens will invest €4.8bn in research and development (R&D) in the current fiscal year (FY) of 2015/2016. An amount of €300m was pumped in investment in FY 2014/2015, an increase of 20%.
At the Innovation at Siemens press and analyst event in Munich on 8 December, president and CEO of Siemens AG Joe Kaeser said that, in fiscal FY 2014/2015, the ratio of R&D expenditure to revenues and research intensity was 5.9%, an increase of 0.3% from the prior year.
Kaeser said Siemens’s success and its long-term future lies in the power of innovation, and the company needs good ideas.
“To strengthen the innovation and technology expertise of Siemens as whole, it has to establish an innovation AG unit and Siemens technology and innovation council (STIC),” Kaeser said. “To support the board in analysing and monitoring strategic topics in the areas of technology and innovation, Siemens is also launching an investment fund to strengthen its employees’ power of innovation.”
The company allocated €100m over three years for this purpose; the fund will be around €10m for the first year, which will be paid into the fund in Germany alone.
Siemens seeks real achievement in Cairo; it does not just come to collect money from Egypt to take back to Germany, he said. Siemens keeps its integrated projects in Egypt, in wind power plants, to produce 2 GW of wind energy and to provide vocational training for Egyptian engineers and technicians in Germany.
