Mission-oriented Research and Innovation Policy in the Netherlands
The Netherlands is famous for having one of the “most ambitious mission-oriented strategic frameworks” (OECD) for research and innovation. What are the origins of this Dutch mission-approach and how is it put into practice? These questions are answered by Rik Boddëus, Innovation Attaché and regional representative for the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency. He is based at the Netherland Embassy in Vienna, and covers Austria and Switzerland. Valuable input came also from Jaap Broersen, Katja Primozic and Floor van der Sluijs from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy.
| Introductory note
The SSC has been working intensively on mission-oriented research and innovation in Switzerland. In this context, the Council has exchanged views with various actors, including from the Netherlands. The SSC will include its position on mission-oriented research and innovation in its statement on the ERI Dispatch 2025–2028. A report on the topic is planned for the end of October. |
The OECD calls the Dutch mission-approach one of “the most ambitious mission-oriented strategic frameworks”. What was the original ambition of the Dutch government to implement such a mission-driven strategy?
When we evaluated the Top Sector Policy in 2017 – which is in force since 2011 – it was reviewed as successful and effective in raising public and private funds for innovation. Among other aspects, the top sector policy was successful in creating networks of companies and knowledge institutions (public-private-partnerships) to program research according to industrial demand, which lead to more profound collaboration. It also contributed to more coherence in the innovation landscape, which resulted in better international visibility of the top sectors.
At the same time, the top sector policy by itself was not designed to create ground-breaking innovations or ‘moon-shots’. A second observation was that, even though demand-driven research will contribute to solving a (societal) challenge and 50% of the projects had both a societal as well as an economic impact, societal challenges were not rendered explicitly. Meanwhile the European Commission had already chosen a mission-oriented approach in its R&D policy.
As societal and political thinking about innovation was changing – along with influential economists such as Mariana Mazzucato – the government decided to steer innovation policy in a new direction. The main ambition was to blend part of the innovation policy with a well-articulated societal demand. By bringing societal missions into the innovation realm of industry and research institutions, solving challenges became a priority, in accordance with European R&D policy.
Could you tell us more about the top sector-approach and its role for the mission-oriented R&I policy in the Netherlands?
The Netherlands has a very diverse and historically knowledge extensive economy, famous for its international position in trade and logistics, but equally the origin of a variety of other innovations. The top sector policy was introduced in 2011 to intensify the economic use of our excellent knowledge base. Nine sectors were chosen that stand out for the quality of R&D as well as the international competitiveness of their products and services: AgriFood, Horticulture and Propagation Materials, Chemistry, Water, Energy, High Tech Systems and Materials, Life Sciences & Health, Logistics and Creative Industry. Recently, ICT has also qualified as the tenth top sector.
The top sectors are now incorporated into the mission-driven innovation policy and still form an important part of our industrial policy. This ‘modern industrial policy’ has made a transition from a subsidy-based environment to an innovation ecosystem in which knowledge institutes, companies and the government meet one another and develop long-term agendas for cooperation. We call this characteristic cooperation the ‘golden triangle’ or ‘triple helix’, since the last term was coined by Loet Leydesdorff and Henry Etzkowitz in 1995.
When mission-driven innovation policy was introduced, it was done while maintaining the top sector structure and introducing a thematic focus on societal challenges.
The cabinet has defined five central missions for the mission-driven innovation policy:
- Energy Transition: the Netherlands climate neutral by 2050;
- Circular Economy: the Netherlands fully circular in 2050;
- Health & Care: people in the Netherlands live 5 years longer healthily, and there are 30% fewer health differences between socio-economic groups by 2040;
- Agriculture, Water and Food: a vital rural area and a resilient nature in a climate-resistant Netherlands;
- Security: the Netherlands is safe and resilient against external threats and subversive crime, both in the physical environment and the digital domain.
The top sectors formulate knowledge and innovation agendas for these missions. At the same time, there is also an agenda for key enabling technologies, that drive innovation necessary for both societal and economic impact.
How is mission-oriented research and innovation funded in the Netherlands?
It is important to mention that mission-oriented research funding is a specific branch of innovation policy, next to more generic instruments and budgets for science and technology funding of universities and RTO’s. However, the mission-oriented policy is an important instrument because of its agenda-setting nature, and because of the involvement of the eight ministries and the top sectors.
The instruments of the ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy that fall directly under the mission-driven innovation policy are:
- Public-Private Partnership scheme (PPS)
- SME Innovation Regional & Top Sectors scheme (MIT),
- Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)
A positive consequence of the government’s broad involvement in mission-oriented innovation policy is that direct innovation instruments are complemented by the budgets of individual ministries and the organizations that fund research (such as Dutch Research Council and the RTOs), all of which align their programs with the mission-oriented and key enabling technologies innovation agendas.
Since 2020 the Netherlands has scaled up its innovation policy with the National Growth Fund (NGF). With the National Growth Fund, the government is allocating €20 billion for projects between 2021 and 2025. For a period of 5 years, € 2 billion yearly is available for large scale innovation and knowledge programs and projects, and the same budget is available for science programs and projects. Programs on Quantum Technology, Regenerative Medicine, Photonics, NextGenHighTech, Oncology, Green Energy, BioBased Circular Economy have applied successfully and received funding.
At this moment, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy is working on an analysis for a new National Technology Strategy. This will also help to focus for an optimal use of the NGF.
How do European mission-driven initiatives such as Horizon Europe or the Green Deal influence the Dutch innovation policy?
While there are many similarities between themes and priorities within European innovation programs and Dutch mission-driven innovation policy, both have their own policy cycle and timing. As stated above, the European mission-oriented approach did have a direct positive influence on Dutch innovation policy.
As research shows, the Netherlands is successfully participating in the EU programs for science, technology and innovation. From the EU Horizon program, for example, entrepreneurs and knowledge institutions get back almost two euros from every euro invested.
At the same time, according to the Dutch Advisory Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (AWTI), we could improve opportunities for research institutions and the industry by more consciously choosing how the national or regional schemes connect to European programs.1
How does the Netherlands measure the impact of its mission-driven innovation policy?
Currently, there is no international evaluation standard for ‘system and transition’ policy evaluation, and scientific methods for this purpose are under development. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate has established an expert committee at the end of 2020 to develop a vision of evaluation practice and to advise on method development for system and transition policy evaluations, looking specifically at the mission-oriented innovation policy.
The commission led by Prof. Dr. Bas ter Weel developed a new set of methods and techniques that can help determine the effectiveness and efficiency of policies. The framework consists of six perspectives: intervention logic, governance processes and match between policy (mix) and bottlenecks, system strengthening/transformation, structural change and societal impact.2
An evaluation of the mission-oriented innovation policy will take place in 2027.
What are lessons-learned of Dutch mission-driven innovation policy that could also be of relevance to Switzerland?
We can make some general observations about Dutch innovation policy with relevance to Switzerland. First of all, classic policy dilemmas that keep on having political attention are: support for SMEs versus general business support and support for challengers versus support for incumbents. Also, there has always been some political and societal discussion about the extent to which there should be central direction regarding innovation topics, versus a bottom-up approach. As we have in recent years progressed towards some level of central steering, this can be considered an add-on to the bottom-up instruments such as the WBSO (a tax incentive for innovation), not a replacement.
The mission-oriented approach is an iterative process and we are learning by doing. What we know so far, is that a mission-oriented approach means more than incentivizing R&D: it requires much broader involvement from government and society. We try to build better models of support, while preserving what works well. And of course we try to raise more funds for innovation as our effort has for a long time been rather average, looking at the percentage of R&D spending related to GDP compared to other countries, while our results have long been rather positive, looking at our position on the different international innovation score boards. With the National Growth Fund we finally seem to make headway in this respect, especially when this new input will lead to the foreseen multiplier effect on private R&D.
If this bears any relevance to Swiss innovation policy is open to discussion. Switzerland traditionally is a slightly more industrialized country than the Netherlands, with a correspondingly higher R&D-ratio, a much higher private R&D-ratio and a seemingly natural relation between industry and science. While one might wonder if, with such a successful innovation ecosystem, one can rest on one’s laurels, the stable Swiss number one position on the different innovation score boards proves otherwise.
How is innovation cooperation between the Netherlands and Switzerland going and what is your role in it?
The Netherlands and Switzerland are natural partners in innovation and cooperate on many levels, from the individual level, looking at guest students and PhDs going back and forth and the many individual companies that cooperate in research & development, to more programmatic forms of cooperation. Within one of the multilateral innovation programs, Eurostars, Switzerland is even the #1 partner for the Netherlands.
Our role at the Netherlands Innovation Network, in very close cooperation with the colleagues from the Netherlands Embassy in Bern, is to foster demand-driven innovation cooperation. This means in practice, a top sector has defined Switzerland as a priority country, and will ask us for help with setting up programmatic cooperation. This might take the shape of high level visits and missions, round table dialogues, and finding specific partners for individual research organizations or companies. The Dutch government also supports industry and research institutions with their joint visibility – you might have seen our distinctive orange branding.
Given the many links that already exist in the innovation domain between Switzerland and the Netherlands and the ambition of the industry, for example the top sector Life Sciences and Health, we aim to step up our efforts and jointly tackle societal challenges, while fostering our ecosystems and creating economic growth in the process.
| The Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency and the Netherlands Innovation Network
How does your work at the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency relate to the Netherlands Innovation Network? First of all, both of the networks have a long history: the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency (NFIA) exists since 1978 and the Netherlands Innovation Network is even celebrating its 70th birthday in October this year. Even though both organizations are distinctive in their tasks and goals, in fact they pull on the same side of the rope. Indeed, research and innovation will only tackle societal challenges when companies are willing to take risks, invest, and scale-up these brilliant ideas. My role as an NFIA representative abroad is to search for companies with high potential for investment in the Netherlands and keep up relations with a selection of companies headquartered in Switzerland that are active in the Netherlands. The work of NFIA can be seen as more target-oriented than the Innovation Network, but is actually focusing strongly on solving global societal challenges. This is where my activities for both networks blend in perfectly. And all the more so since the NFIA has focused its work on attracting companies to the Netherlands that can contribute to sustainable industry and the Dutch innovation ecosystem, following the new NFIA strategy set out in April 2020. NFIA is part of the Invest in Holland network, which also comprises regional development organizations in the Netherlands, several major cities and the Holland International Distribution Council. Together, the partners in this extensive network have valuable connections that reach into local communities. They can, for example, help find the right location in the early phase, but can also assist in finding partners for joint research, and finding the way within the top sectors. In that way, what we do outside of the Netherlands is reflected inside once an investor has set foot on Dutch soil. Lastly, a key asset for the NFIA and the Netherlands Innovation Network is that we work from out of our Embassies and Consulates General. There, we cooperate with Foreign Affairs colleagues from the political and economic sections, and in some cases with attachés from other ministries, such as the Ministry for Education, Science & Culture, and the ministry of Defense. By combining forces, we have access to a wealth of local networks and knowledge, and with the high-level support of our ambassadors, it is sometimes possible to open doors that might otherwise remain closed to our companies and knowledge institutes. |
1 The AWTI advice is available in English: ‚Advice: Strategic Interplay – Combine the strengths of the Netherlands and the EU for greater research and innovation impact‘.
2 The report is available in Dutch: Rapport expertcommissie evaluatiemethoden systeem- en transitiebeleid | Rapport | Bedrijvenbeleid in beeld.