Universities must demonstrate their economic value, says House of Representatives

From patents to spin-offs, to what extent do universities of applied sciences and universities contribute to the Dutch economy? The House of Representatives believes they should map this out.

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives voted in favour of a motion from D66 and PRO on ‘valorisation’. This is a statutory responsibility of universities of applied sciences and universities: they must transfer their knowledge to society so that companies, among others, can make use of it.

However, the motion states that there is no ‘uniform and comparable national picture of the results’ of this valorisation. D66 and PRO are not the only parties calling for this to change: governing parties CDA and VVD, as well as a sizeable group of opposition parties from across the political spectrum, support the proposal.

The government should enter into talks with the knowledge institutions about this. This should result in a publicly accessible set of ‘key indicators’ for valorisation, such as the number of companies produced by the knowledge institutions (spin-offs) and how much money they bring in through their patents.

Feasible

Universities association UNL is happy with the proposal. “This certainly seems feasible to us”, says spokesperson Ruben Puylaert. “The universities are already working on it. Talks are already under way with the ministry, and more and more data on valorisation is becoming available.”

This is not the first attempt to map valorisation. As early as 2012, universities of applied sciences and universities promised to develop a set of indicators, but this did not result in a clear national overview.

This spring, a report was published on the societal relevance of research. Its conclusion was that this could not really be captured in figures. It remains to be seen how the institutions will approach economic valorisation.