Strengths and weaknesses of the ‘Hot Spot’ East-Netherlands

The Netherlands’s regional innovation policy is currently under discussion and changing its direction. The recent government Discussion Paper on regional policy in the Netherlands called ‘Peaks in the Delta’ exemplifies a clear shift in the core philosophy: in the new style regional policy, choices will be made for initiatives and good project proposals in economic growth zones, i.e. those regional policy plans with good perspectives for economic development.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs challenges all regions to come with promising innovation strategies. This is in line with an important premise in the national innovation policy: increased focus and critical mass instead of small-scale initiatives and fragmentation. In this vision only well functioning local and regional innovation networks of firms, research organisations and governments will be able to develop attractive innovation activities.

East-Netherlands Provinces of Gelderland and Overijssel asked Technopolis to conduct a SWOT analysis on the region. The region was assessed on 14 characteristics that make a strong top technology region. Specific attention was paid to three sub-regions: Food Valley, Health Valley and Technology Valley. The results of the study show that East-Netherlands has good potential to become a top technology region. The public research infrastructure is excellent, the ambition level is high and the self-organizational abilities are good. However, the potential of the knowledge competences is not fully utilised, there are few ‘large’ knowledge producing companies, and the connection between top-down views and bottom-up activities could be strengthened.

Information
For more information please contact Patries Boekholt - Phone: +31 (0)20 5352244

Downloads
To download the background report click here
The Synthesis report can be downloaded here