New Flemish Government invests extra in innovation

The new Flemish Government is determined to strengthen the position of Flanders as the European leader in innovation and even to advance to the world top, by increasing the public investment in innovation to 1% and together with the business community increasing the joint investment in R&D to 5% of the gross domestic product.

Innovation is the engine for sustainable economic growth and higher productivity of Flemish industry. Driven by new geopolitical and societal challenges, we will have to respond to promising developments, such as renewable energy, sustainable mobility, biotechnology or digital technologies.?

In recent years, the six Flemish spearhead clusters (Catalisti, De Blauwe Cluster, Flanders' FOOD, Flux50, MEDVIA and VIL) have convincingly proven that as neutral partners they connect companies, knowledge institutions, citizens and governments to create maximum economic and social added value in Flanders through innovation. Meanwhile, it has also been demonstrated that companies that are members of a cluster organization, realize higher added value and productivity than the sector average.

The spearhead clusters are therefore determined to further strengthen their role together and find in the Flemish Government a strong partner to increase the company-driven social and socio-economic impact. This among other things by improving the accessibility of SMEs, focusing on guiding startups and scale-ups, strengthening internationalization, scaling up connection to European funds.?

Given the need to accelerate major transitions (energy, food, mobility, climate, health, etc.), systems innovation will be the new guiding principle.

Administrative simplification should also make it easier for companies to access innovations and for resources for innovation to be better targeted. The Flemish spearhead clusters are reaching out to new minister of innovation Matthias Diependaele to jointly safeguard and strengthen the competitive position of Flemish entrepreneurs through innovation over the next five years.