Jun 18, 2024
Lars Hornuf Speaker at the 6th Bremen Finance Talks
On June 16, 2024, Prof. Lars Hornuf was invited as part of the "6th Bremen Finance Talks" at the Industrie-Club Bremen e. V. The 6th edition of the "Bremen Finance Talks" was organized by the Department of Business Administration and Economics at the University of Bremen and supported by the Deutsche Bundesbank. Previous guests of the event have included Prof. Peter Bofinger (University of Würzburg, former member of the German Council of Economic Experts) and Prof. Johannes Beermann (member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank). After a welcoming address by Julia von Borstel, representative of the Deutsche Bundesbank's head office for Bremen, Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, Prof. Hornuf spoke on the topic of "The European space sector: promoting public support and benefiting from research and development".
After an introduction to the importance of space technology for everyday life, Prof. Hornuf gave a comprehensive overview of the various subsectors of the space industry: from launch services and satellite production to satellite operators and providers of services in the ground and control segment. He emphasized the particular importance of the space industry for Bremen, which, with companies such as OHB and Airbus and the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM), is one of the centers of the European space industry and calls itself the "City of Space".
Another focus of the talk was the role of politics as a supporter of the space industry, particularly in the context of European programs such as the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Union Agency for the Space Program (EUSPA). In this context, Prof. Hornuf explained how essential public approval and financial commitment of public institutions are for progress of the space industry. He also spoke about the so-called "spillovers" that result from investments in space technology. These are innovations that have the potential to have a positive impact far beyond the space industry and enrich numerous sectors on Earth.
The event ended with a lively discussion in which, among other things, participants discussed why the good education of aerospace engineers in Germany results in only a few aerospace start-ups compared to other European countries.
