News item | 11-11-2022 | 15:41
The government believes that the strong knowledge position of Dutch researchers and entrepreneurs should lead to more applications in products and services. This is necessary in response to many challenges such as resource scarcity, digitization, sustainability and security and forms the basis for economic growth. In the coming years, the government will therefore allocate more than € 20 billion for innovation policy and will add extra focus to it in order to achieve greater social impact.
The Council of Ministers has approved the government’s vision on innovation and impact on the proposal of Minister Adriaansens of Economic Affairs and Climate and Minister Dijkgraaf of Education, Culture and Science.
Minister Adriaansens: “We can make better use of the opportunities of knowledge and innovation in the Netherlands. We will do this in two ways, together with education, researchers, entrepreneurs and investors. We are going to force ourselves to make a sharper choice for what has real value for our society and economic growth. And we aim to increase the total investment in knowledge and innovation, by government and private parties, by more than 30% in the coming years. More focus and more financing will yield more innovative results.”
Minister Dijkgraaf: “With this joint vision, we ensure that the potential of our knowledge is better utilized for society. We strengthen the foundation together with knowledge institutions, the private sector and governments. With these joint actions, we are strengthening our position at the top of the global research and innovation scene. With the great qualities of research and innovation in the Netherlands, we can meet the major societal challenges of today and in the future.”
Sharper choices in innovation policy
The government will continue to collaborate between companies, knowledge institutions and governments through the so-called mission-driven top sectors and innovation policy. The focus is on sustainability (energy transition and circular economy), digitization and key technologies such as photonics and artificial intelligence. Healthcare, agriculture/water/food and safety also receive attention. But sharper choices must be made within these themes, so that innovation leads to more applications in products and services. This is also necessary, for example, to become less economically dependent on third countries, as the government described this week in its vision on open strategic autonomy.
The government is also making financial resources available for this. For example, through public investments by the National Growth Fund (€ 20 billion). In addition, next year a review of the Knowledge and Innovation Agendas (KIAs) will follow and the conclusion of a new Knowledge and Innovation Covenant (KIC) with the more than 30 participating parties. In recent years, the public and private investments in this covenant amounted to approximately € 5 billion annually.
Expenditure on research and development
Dutch expenditure (public and private) on research and development currently amounts to 2.3% of gross domestic product. The objective is to increase this expenditure by 30% in the coming years, without the private share falling.
This extra step is necessary to remain a global leader. This step is also in line with the cabinet’s earlier vision of the manufacturing and other industries, which states that it must account for at least 10% of the economy. Important for this is the indexation of the WBSO scheme with an extra budget of €50 million from 2023, which will increase further thereafter. With the WBSO, entrepreneurs can reduce their costs for research and development.
More impact of knowledge
The Dutch level of knowledge is world-class, but the impact of scientific, applied and practice-oriented research can and must be improved. The government therefore wants to encourage more application of knowledge (valorisation). The road from knowledge to results is not a one-way street. Impact is created where researchers, entrepreneurs and social organizations work together.
The National Growth Fund invests in this. There are also investments in this area in strengthening applied research facilities (€500 million), practice-oriented research (€100 million) and the large-scale scientific infrastructure (€500 million). There are also plenty of financing options (more than € 1 billion) available for innovative start-ups and scale-ups.