Advice: Raising the bar together

The Netherlands is facing a period of major transitions towards a green, sustainable, digital and inclusive economy. Innovation plays a crucial role in this process. Innovation takes place in the regions, where businesses, scientists, talent and civil-society organisations come together to create inspiring initiatives and opportunities for innovation. Some regions are more successful in this than others. Each region faces its own specific challenges in renewing its economy, strengthening broad welfare and prosperity in society and contributing to the achievement of transition goals. These differences between regions are steadily widening, partly due to the coronavirus crisis. However, achieving broad prosperity for the Netherlands and making progress in the transitions are dependent on the innovative strength of all regions. It is therefore essential that relevant innovation initiatives are strongly linked together across regions. Central government has a key role to play in facilitating this.
In this report the Dutch Advisory Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (AWTI) addresses the following question:
What can central government do to strengthen the innovative power of the Netherlands as a whole by helping to increase the innovative power of each individual region?