The ZIP project, conducted jointly by the Wuppertal Institute and the Bertelsmann Foundation, explores the challenges and opportunities facing industrial policy in the context of climate neutrality, geopolitical tensions, and increasing global competition.
The project team has devised criteria for a future-proof industrial policy that can help to structure the debate on industrial policy, while consistently keeping overarching goals in the focus and minimising existing risks. These criteria will enable conscious and transparent political trade-offs to be made. Subsequently, the criteria were applied in three case studies.
The overall objective is to create a foundation for informed, targeted industrial policy discussions that meet the current challenges. To achieve this, three central questions need to be answered:
- What criteria for a future-proof industrial policy are theoretically sound?
- Are the criteria useful and manageable in practice?
- Can the application of the criteria generate concrete insights and policy recommendations?
In the first part of the study, the researchers analyse the relevance of the industrial sector for the political goals mentioned above. They then provide an overview of the essential arguments for industrial policy interventions in the economic and political science literature, and outline the central challenges for the practical implementation of industrial policy. On this basis, they propose ten criteria for a future-proof industrial policy, with the help of which individual instruments, as well as the overall industrial policy package, can be analysed, designed and evaluated.
In the second part of the study, the authors provide an overview of the existing industrial policy landscape in Germany and at EU level. They then examine the practical applicability of the criteria using case studies – and demonstrate that the criteria are useful for the political debate. Concluding, the researchers derive key recommendations for a future-proof industrial policy.