Projects and Partners

According to the law in the Netherlands each university has three different tasks: education, research and service to the community. This last aspect includes knowledge and technology transfer. The process of knowledge and technology transfer should bridge the gap between fundamental research (the core activity of a university and research institutes), applied research (the research that is tailor-made for industry) and society.

The University of Twente has been an actively supporting business development from the early 80’s: graduates entering the entrepreneurial path, start-up companies using UT-knowledge, and innovative, -small and large- regionally, nationally and internationally operating companies.

We have now reached a next stage, which is mainly about valorisation. The central question in valorisation is how (scientific) knowledge can be made to serve economic and social purposes at an accelerated rate, and how the gap between interesting academic knowledge and (technical) applications can be bridged. That’s exactly what our activities are about. To the outside world, this is visible for instance in projects like VentureLab and Kansrijk Eigen Baas, and previously the TOP arrangement –now executed by Kennispark Twente .

In the context of Kennispark Twente our emphasis has shifted to working together with relevant partners, such as municipal, regional and provincial authorities, as well as businesses, and other knowledge institutes, like Saxion University of Applied Sciences. We are also active on an international level, working with such bodies as the ICT Labs of the European Institute of Technology.

Ultimately, the aim of valorization is to make our (existing and new) business community more entrepreneurial, innovative, flexible and customer-oriented to be able to survive global competition.