Launch of HortiScience Innovation Center (HIC)

The HortiScience Innovation Center brings together WUR’s groundbreaking plant knowledge, the passionate entrepreneurship of YES!Delft and StartLife, and the supportive role of Lansingerland municipal council. They provide a boost for startups and achieve pioneering innovations in greenhouse horticulture aimed at developing a more sustainable production system.

Dutch greenhouse horticulture is a global leader and known for its innovative strength, with South-West Netherlands being a key region for enabling innovations. Local and regional government agencies and public bodies are closely involved in the horticulture sector. Many of the leading companies in the sector, both growers and suppliers, are based here. The various local knowledge institutions have a great deal of scientific expertise in cultivation, technology and sustainability. Furthermore, these knowledge institutions encourage and facilitate startups through associated incubators. The long-term collaboration between research institutions and companies has already resulted in many innovations, but acceleration is needed. Because the sector is facing a major challenge: the transition to fully sustainable cultivation. For that reason, WUR, Lansingerland municipal council and the Yes!Delft and StartLife incubators have joined forces to form a powerful alliance: the HortiScience Innovation Center (HIC).

Together with the 2 other Greenport Horti Campus locations, the HIC provides a powerful boost for the sector's innovative capacity and its international profile. In the view of HIC's founding parties, the sector's sustainability goals can only be achieved through cross-fertilisation between established frontrunners, start-up hortitech entrepreneurs and scientific experts. The HortiScience Innovation Center facilitates that.

On 15 May, the initiative was launched at a festive signing of a consortium agreement.