Dutch Education minister Ingrid van Engelshoven and Economic Affairs secretary Mona Keijzer have allocated 24 million euros to stimulate knowledge transfer from research to society and the market. Investors will be encouraged to back start-ups industrializing knowledge from research organizations. The government funding comes from the Thematic Technology Transfer (TTT) program and will be divided over three consortia of research organizations and venture capitalists: smart systems, circular solutions and regenerative medicine, each receiving 8 million euros.
The Dutch universities of technology (Delft, Eindhoven, Twente and Wageningen) and TNO will receive a total of 16 million euros. Half of the money is intended for their partnership with Innovation Industries, an investment fund aimed at Dutch tech start-ups, to work on smart systems for cars, domestic robots and food production. The other half will go to their collaboration with the independent fund manager NBI Investors, for optimal usage of natural resources.
The TTT program is meant to help research organizations share knowledge and supply seed money to start-ups. The three consortia were selected by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) and the Dutch Research Council (NWO).