Congratulations on your new office, Ms Stark-Watzinger. Let us get started right away. How do you see the role of education and research with regard to the future of the people in our country?

I am convinced that we can empower each and every individual person. The means to achieve this is education. Education starts at day care centres and continues at school, in vocational training and higher education and, ideally, throughout our lives. This is how we create opportunities and enable individual careers for anyone, whatever their personal background. Better education provides for advancement and self-determination as well as for growth and prosperity. Its twin is research and innovation. The two of them provide the basis for progress and are urgently required to address grand challenges such as COVID-19, digitalization and climate change.

What are your main plans for the next few years?

The new coalition wants to dare more progress. Education and research will play a key role in this regard. They are the most important drivers of progress in our country. It is my ambition to build on past achievements and move quickly to launch the projects of the Coalition Agreement in my area. The coronavirus pandemic has made clear that we need a modernization boost in education. This is why I think it is particularly important that we work to make the Digital Pact take up speed by reducing bureaucratic hurdles. We want to reform BAföG training assistance and make it less dependent on parental income. And we want to provide additional support to children and young people who are in special need to give them a better educational start in life. We also want to do more for Germany’s multi-faceted research landscape. Science and research contribute substantially to progress. This is why we want to increase government expenditure on research and development to 3.5 percent of GDP. And personally, I want to remain as curious as a researcher.

Education and research are not entirely new areas for you. When did you become involved in such issues during your earlier career?

Education and research accompanied me even before my political career. Education has been part of my life as a mother of two daughters. And I worked almost ten years in the management of two financial research institutions in Frankfurt before being elected as a member of the German Bundestag, where I was responsible for the budget of the Education and Research Ministry.

 Thank you for your time, Ms Stark-Watzinger.