Employment at Kennispark Twente significantly up over last five years

Campuses and Science Parks of the Netherlands flywheel for growth and innovation

Employment at Kennispark Twente substantially increased in the past five years

The Netherlands has twenty adult and growth campuses, good for 200,000 professionals working at innovative companies and knowledge institutions. With their ecosystems, these campuses attract start-ups, support further development into scale-ups and form a magnet and hotbed for talent, capital and companies. This not only strengthens the local economy, but also the international position of the Netherlands as a knowledge and innovation country.

Growth and cooperation as the basis for success

The Nationaal Campussen Overleg (NCO) unites the top campuses in the Netherlands, namely Amsterdam Science Park, Brightlands Chemelot Campus, Campus Groningen, High Tech Campus Eindhoven, Kennispark Twente, Leiden Bio Science Park, TU Delft Campus, TU Eindhoven, Utrecht Science Park and Wageningen Campus. Together, these campuses form an important network that brings together companies, start-ups, knowledge institutions and governments to accelerate innovations.

Edward van der Meer, chairman of NCO commented, ‘The study underlines the decisive role of campuses in finding answers to societal challenges and accelerating technological progress. By working together as campuses, we create a flywheel for responsible, national economic growth and provide a platform to address broad societal issues, such as sustainability, digitalisation and health.’

BCI’s research report identifies a number of campuses that have progressed to ‘mature campuses’ and a number of growth and development campuses, such as the High Tech Systems Park in Hengelo and Technology Base in Enschede respectively, that are of great value to the ecosystem.

Attractive business climate

Campus environments make the Netherlands an attractive business location. That the campuses are an incubator for start-ups that grow into scale-ups and a magnet for knowledge workers, talent and technology-driven companies and capital confirms the Kennispark figures.
‘The presence of Kennispark not only strengthens the local and regional economy but, together with the other campuses in Twente, also the international position of our region and of the Netherlands as a country of knowledge and innovation,’ says Bertyl Lankhaar, area director of Kennispark Twente.

Van der Meer adds from the NCO: ‘Campuses and science parks are the Netherlands’ international calling card for successful innovation. To continue and strengthen this role, further investment in physical space, accessibility, state-of-the-art research infrastructure, energy supply and sustainability is essential. In this way, we make an important contribution to a future-proof and attractive business climate of the Netherlands. This is reflected in the enormous and structural employment growth on these campuses.’

Employment at Kennispark increased by 64% over the past five years

Total employment at established companies at Kennispark increased by 64% from 2018 to 2024. This is significant when compared to the growth of regular business parks in Enschede, where employment increased 14% during that period. The number of start-ups at Kennispark has doubled in the past six years, as has employment for these companies.

Kennispark Twente is the oldest science park in the Netherlands, the first in Europe to realise a Business Technology Centre (BTC Twente) in the 1980s; a unique concept with flexible offices, business space, cleanrooms and laboratories for innovative companies, startups and growing businesses. Where it started with workspace for 20 companies at the time, Kennispark now hosts more than 460 companies, which together with the University of Twente account for more than 11,000 jobs.

BCI’s campuses report mainly highlights companies in innovative sectors such as R&D, ICT, Technical Services and High Tech manufacturing. For Kennispark, this involves 180 companies and over 4,000 employees.

Bertyl Lankhaar, director of Kennispark: ‘Kennispark is a breeding ground for innovative companies. We see companies starting up here, growing and sometimes developing to the point where they transcend the space at Kennispark. We then see them grow further elsewhere, such as NX Filtration, which recently also realised a branch at the High Tech Systems Park in Hengelo. This creates throughput that is also needed to provide space for subsequent start-ups, for spin-offs from the University of Twente, scale ups and (inter)national companies that want to establish themselves at Kennispark.’

The cooperation of the campuses is an important foundation and contribution to the Netherlands. This is evidenced by the following elements:

• putting talent first and ensuring continuous flow of knowledge, through intensive cooperation between educational institutions, research institutes and business;
• accelerating innovation, by sharing knowledge and resources across campuses and setting up joint research programmes;
• create impact at scale, by deploying regional expertise nationwide and building together on solutions that help realise the major transitions of our time;
• strengthen our international position, by putting the Netherlands’ profile as a knowledge country on the map and offering an attractive business climate for innovative companies, capital and talent alike.

You can download the full report here.