Project

On 29 August 2018, the Federal Government decided to establish an agency to promote breakthrough innovations under the leadership of the BMBF and the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK, formerly BMWi). This was intended to close an existing funding gap in the identification, validation and further development of research ideas with leap innovation potential and ultimately make a contribution to securing the long-term competitiveness of the German economy and to Germany's future. SPRIND was founded in Leipzig on 16 December 2019 as a limited liability company with the Federal Republic of Germany as the sole shareholder. The SPRIND Freedom Act (SPRINDFG) came into force on 30 December 2023 and provides for SPRIND to be mortgaged. With regard to the supervision associated with this commissioning, Section 2 (1) SPRINDFG states: "SPRIND is subject to the legal and technical supervision of the BMBF. The technical supervision shall focus on the establishment of appropriate procedures for the performance of the assigned funding tasks and on ensuring that SPRIND fulfils its tasks economically." The need for specialised supervision of SPRIND was a point of discussion during the legislative negotiations - both in the context of the departmental vote and in the supervisory board meetings. Ultimately, the following requirement was included in Section 7 (2) SPRINDFG: ‘In a further evaluation, which is to be submitted by 31 January 2026, the specialist supervision pursuant to Section 2 (1) will be the subject of an efficiency and effectiveness review, on the basis of which statutory amendments will be examined.’

On the one hand, the legislator wanted to enable the review of specialised supervision in practice and, on the other, to create a basis for any future amendments to the law.

The subject of the evaluation is the specialised supervision of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (hereinafter: BMBF) over the Federal Agency for Springboard Innovations SPRIND GmbH.