The world's first matchmaking tool for scientists and industry
Techleap.nl, the Dutch universities and TNO, today launched the ScienceFinder. The database, built-in collaboration with IDfuse, has around 422,224 publications, 120,797 projects and 364 academic startups, making scientific research and academic networks accessible to partners from the business community and government. The database is the first of its kind worldwide and a joint initiative of Techleap.nl, the four Technical Universities (Delft, Eindhoven, Twente and Wageningen), TNO, NWO-TTW and the VSNU with support from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate.
The ScienceFinder makes it clear to business and government partners where relevant knowledge is present within the knowledge institutions. It thus contributes to cooperation between business and knowledge institutions.
The ScienceFinder allows the user to easily search a database for relevant information about research activities in the Netherlands. For example, if you search for 'artificial intelligence' you will get an overview of the state of affairs in this area with an overview of activities per university.
The ScienceFinder can also be used to analyze breakthrough technologies, such as: where are the scientists actively developing proof of concepts for a certain technology? From this, heat maps can be generated around themes such as quantum computing, blockchain, hydrogen or artificial intelligence. The heatmaps can be about purely scientific quality (publications) or, for example, be more focused on the distance to the market (take-off grants, innovation credit, cooperation with the business community). It provides the business community and the government with information about relevant research groups.
Techleap.nl will also use the ScienceFinder a basis of knowledge to create and publish reports on Knowledge Transfer.
The Netherlands can take the lead
With the ScienceFinder, Techleap.nl is taking a step forward in collaboration in the field of emerging technologies. This is necessary to keep pace with other countries such as the United States, China, Germany and France, which invest heavily in marketing scientific knowledge.
Nils Beers, CEO Techleap.nl: "With the ScienceFinder we not only prioritize the commercialization of technology and scientific knowledge, but we also accelerate the much-needed embedding of technologies in the ecosystem. This is necessary to keep our country relevant on a global stage, to keep it as beautiful as it is today and to prevent us from using solutions exclusively built by other countries."
Pieter Duisenberg, chairman of VSNU: "The ScienceFinder is living proof that the knowledge from Dutch universities contributes to our society and economy. We want to further strengthen our knowledge transfer in the Netherlands. The ScienceFinder plays a crucial role in this by making scientific research accessible to partners from industry and government.
Source: Techleap.nl
