while i think you're right, but these things are not always visible to an developer/foreigner. Fraunhofer is not as visible as they should, because they are conduction a lot of commercial research in joint ventures with local businesses and are not specialising into research areas where they are most visible. I recently read an interview with the director of an ivy-league university where he stated that they only finance research team that have an realistic shot at being leading, outstanding and visible in the research world. If you compare that to germany where you might end up in one of the countless mechanical engineering research groups it's way harder to be outstanding, just because it's more crowded. But that's not what the Fraunhofer Society is about, it's doing very practical research, mostly driven by local businesses and their needs.
Indeed. That's an issue Germany seems to have repeatedly recently: While the US went full on into marketing, we've never done that - and that's exactly what's missing, not the research, but the marketing and propaganda of being the #1.
If we actually want that, though, is another question.
