Plenty of opportunities to strengthen knowledge-intensive innovation

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About the relationship between universities, startups and society

Opportunities abound to make better use of knowledge and innovation for major societal challenges, such as climate change, the future of healthcare or a fair data economy. That is apparent from research carried out by the Rathenau Instituut. The report “Tussen uitvinding en uitdaging” [Between invention and challenge] (in Dutch) contains suggestions to increase the societal impact of knowledge from universities and of innovations by starting entrepreneurs.

Universities can create boundary conditions to facilitate entrepreneurship among students and staff. The government can adjust the structural funding to universities so they can better organise themselves to utilise their knowledge for societal challenges. And further guidelines are needed for the allocation of the revenues from entrepreneurship and intellectual property that originate from publicly funded knowledge.

These are a few of the suggestions from the Rathenau Instituut in the report "Tussen uitvinding en uitdaging. Over de relatie tussen universiteiten, startups en de samenleving” [Between invention and challenge. About the relationship between universities, startups and society] (in Dutch). Based on a literature review and interviews, the Rathenau Instituut outlines a vision about the relationship between universities, startups and society that requires societal innovation.

Innovations in areas such as energy, health and mobility are frequently based on knowledge within universities and affiliated initiatives. Starting businesses sometimes strive to purposely use that knowledge for the development of innovations with societal impact. However, universities are independent knowledge institutions. If companies want to survive, they must make a profit. And what is seen as a societal challenge, is partly dependent on the outcome of political processes. Therefore, it is questionable how this triangular relationship between universities, startups and society can generate benefits for all of these parties concerned.

The Rathenau Instituut report indicates which forms of support universities can provide to startups, where the bottlenecks in this relationship are found and which courses of action are open to all parties to cash in on unused opportunities.

‘Universities, startups, the Dutch government and the EU can find each other in the shared mission to deploy knowledge and innovation for societal challenges’, says Jasper Deuten, theme coordinator Robust Science and Knowledge Ecosystems. ‘Our research reveals plenty of opportunities to enrich the Dutch government’s challenge-oriented innovation policy.’

Learn more (in Dutch)