The Netherlands and Germany are joining forces for a joint innovation approach to green hydrogen and green chemistry
08-04-2021
During the InnovatieExpo 2021, Minister Bas van ‘t Wout received from ECCM chair Richard van de Sanden, a call to action for bilateral collaboration in green hydrogen and green chemicals between Germany and The Netherlands. This call to action will be used as a basis to set up a joint innovation programme for collaboration between industry and knowledge institutes across the border. “We have each other a lot to offer with respect to first class knowledge, infrastructure and vital industrial clusters to make the transition really happen”, emphasizes Van ‘t Wout. The Dutch Research Council NWO will contribute five million euro to the bilateral collaboration via the mission driven innovation policy of the Dutch government.
The bilateral call to action pinpoints where the interesting leads are for public-private collaboration. Germany and The Netherlands have a lot to offer to each other. Germany has unique R&D and innovation infrastructure and several boosting national initiatives like the excellence clusters, Kopernikus projects, living labs and energy research networks. The Netherlands knows how to bring together innovation, societal challenges and earning capacity in its mission-driven innovation policy. The Netherlands has a high-quality chemical industry and manufacturing industry, a strong knowledge position and, with its ports and gas infrastructure, an ideal starting position for hydrogen.
The call to action is an initiative of a public-private bilateral committee, chaired by Matthias Wessling, professor in chemical engineering from RWTH Aachen University. Wessling, who held a professorship at the University of Twente in the past and knows the Dutch ecosystem very well: “In the Netherlands interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral collaboration is embedded in the mentality. As a relative small country with an open economy, The Netherlands regard innovate technology as an important export product.”
Read the full article here.
VoltaChem program director Martijn de Graaff is a member of the ECCM advisory committee, on behalf of VoltaChem founding partner TNO.
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