News item | 01-12-2022 | 2:20 pm
The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) has made it possible to open a subsidy scheme of € 8 million for knowledge institutions from the Netherlands Enterprise Agency as of 1 December 2022. The aim of the subsidy scheme is to bring to market techniques that can lead to faster development of vaccines and medicines in a future pandemic.
Minister Ernst Kuipers (VWS): “We have seen how quickly and well academics can work together to develop innovative solutions. Without innovation, we cannot fight a future pandemic faster or better. That is why I think it is important that we, as a ministry, make a move towards the creation of an innovative ecosystem in which the right people and resources from science and industry are brought together.”
Subsidy scheme
We don’t know what the next pandemic will look like. We do know that the next pandemic requires fast and effective innovative solutions. There is a lot of knowledge development in the Netherlands, but this knowledge is not always converted into results. That is why the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport considers it important that there is a subsidy scheme for knowledge institutions and start-ups, so that the Netherlands is as well prepared as possible for a possible new pandemic.
The ministry wants an innovative ecosystem to develop between scientists and the business community and has made €8 million available for the scheme. The available money comes from the budget of the government-wide approach to pandemic preparedness. The subsidy scheme falls under the Thematic Technology Transfer scheme (TTT). The TTT scheme specifically targets pathogens with pandemic potential.
Look ahead more information about the Thematic Technology Transfer Scheme on the RVO website.