Page - (000211) - in Knowledge and Networks

205 was arguably the main result of the targeted appeal relating to the FCEs in both regions. Formation Phase: Implementing Cross-Sectorial Platform-Policies In November 2010 the NPE published its first interim report, which centered on the activities of the seven installed working groups. The members of the NPE were pressed for time because the financial aid provided by the second economic stimu- lus package was scheduled to end in 2011. Each of the seven technological working groups (e.g., battery systems, electric drivetrains, infrastructures, and framework conditions) was led by an industry representative and consisted of about twenty members. Within the framework of the NPE’s interim report, each working group published its own roadmap “to set out the development paths” (National Platform for Electromobility, 2010, p. 5). The work and outcome of these groups clearly indicate that the NPE had already become more than a policy and funding announce- ment by the government. In May 2011, just 1 year after the platform had been created, the NPE released its second report, in which the members pushed two central claims. First, they developed the idea of technological “lighthouse projects” (National Platform for Electromobility, 2011, pp. 16–25, e.g., the battery, drivetrain technology, ICT, and infrastructure lighthouses) to foster interorganizational and intersectorial R&D projects. In these projects R&D activities with a “strategic character” (p. 16) were to be bundled in keeping with the proposed roadmaps drawn up by the NPE’s work- ing groups. Second, large-scale regional showcases of applied science and technol- ogy were to be established to succeed the electromobility pilot regions (pp. 55–57). Only a few days after the report appeared, the federal government itself went public with its own program, in which it basically adopted the NPE’s strategic recommen- dations (German Federal Government, 2011). Simultaneously, the government assured it would provide €1 billion for R&D activities in the upcoming years until late 2013. By contrast, it temporarily excluded direct market incentives, even though the NPE strongly recommended monetary incentives to achieve the ambitious and controversial goal of selling 1 million electric vehicles in Germany by 2020. In October 2011 the government announced the funding program called Electromobility Showcases, which addressed primarily the regional level. In early 2012, at the end of the period we studied, the regions of Berlin/Brandenburg, Baden- Wuerttemberg, Lower Saxony, and Bavaria/Saxony were selected as the four show- cases for Germany. Within a 3-year period the government was to provide a total of €180 million for the projects involved. Given the results of the NPE process—char- acterized by field-configuring or field-reconfiguring events—and the subsequent government program, it is presumably appropriate to note that the basic contours of 10 Platforming for Path-Breaking