News item | 02-11-2023 | 9:00 am
The joint efforts within the so-called mission-driven innovation policy of the cabinet amounts to 5.7 billion euros annually. The business community, knowledge institutions, governments and other (social) organizations agreed on this today in the new Knowledge and Innovation Covenant (KIC) 2024-2027. Minister Micky Adriaansens (Economic Affairs and Climate) presented the KIC today during the InnovationExpo 2023 signed in Rotterdam with more than thirty partners.
Minister Micky Adriaansens (EZK): “We want the Netherlands to remain at the top in terms of innovation. Only in this way can we tackle major challenges in the areas of technology, climate, digitalization and safety. By converting knowledge into innovation here, we can solve social challenges, reduce our dependence on non-EU countries and provide jobs and income for future generations. Signing the KIC is not a formality. For me, it shows what the strength of the Netherlands is: public and private parties that are motivated to work together to create a strong and innovative Netherlands.”
It mission-driven innovation policy focuses on five missions (goals) in the areas of energy transition, circular economy, health & care, agriculture/water & food and safety. Key technologies, digitalization and scaling up are crucial for both social impact and economic growth. In order to properly coordinate the activities, the KIC partners therefore work together through eight Knowledge and Innovation Agendas (KIAs). These are:
- Climate and energy
- Circular Economy
- Agriculture, Water, Food
- Health & Care
- Safety
- Key technologies
- Digitization
- Social Earning Capacity
In the KIC, the partners indicate which resources they expect to deploy. The new one is from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy Innovation Scheme for Public Private Partnership (PPS-I) deployed. 180 million euros are available for this. This scheme follows the PPP Allowance Scheme. The new PPP Innovation Scheme is even better equipped to contribute to solving the challenges in the eight KIAs, together with the business community and knowledge institutions. For example, the conditions for more application-oriented research have been improved, meaning that collaboration programs can also be used more for the benefit of SMEs.
Dutch expenditure (public and private) on research and development currently amounts to 2.3% of gross domestic product (GDP). The government’s objective is to grow this expenditure by 30% to 3.0 percent of GDP, without reducing the private share. The new KIC focuses more on bringing knowledge and innovations to the market. For example, by financing innovative entrepreneurs from the Regional Development Companies (ROMs) and Invest-NL.