€180 million boost for Limburg Chemelot Campus

Nieuws | de redactie

16 januari 2012 | Two research campuses in the Dutch province Limburg will get a boost of €180 million. The money comes from the regional government, Maastricht University (UM) and multinational DSM. The parties expect an additional €30 million in subsidies from the state.

The intensified public and private partnership takes the shapeof a consortium (Chemelot Campus), a venture capital fund, andnew master courses in the field of bio-based materials and systemsbiology.  As a next step in their cross-border cooperation Maastricht Universityand Rheinisch-Westfaelische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) willjointly offer advanced courses in related fields on the ChemelotCampus. By integrating academic classes with expertise from privatebusinesses, it is expected that students will have excellentopportunities finding a job upon graduation.

“Thus far around 20% of all Maastricht students remain in theregion after getting their degree”, UM President Martin Paul says. “The cooperation betweengovernment and business is important in order to make the Limburgregion more attractive to young knowledge workers. It is myambition to increase the number of students remaining in the regionfrom the current 1000 to 1500-2000.”

Appeal to start-ups

Chemelot will be home to the new ‘Enabling Technologies Project’that will offer high end microscopes to make visible micro- andnanostructures in materials.  DSM, Maastricht University andthe Province of Limburg each invest €2.3 million in this project.Small and medium size enterprises can make use of the state of theart materials through a voucher system.

In the course of this project, a venture capital fund (‘LimburgVentures II’) will appeal to start-ups in the area. In total therevolving fund now comprises €50 million. DSM Netherlands directorAtzo Nicolaï has no doubt that the Economics Ministry will offer anadditional €30 million to support this initiative. “Our cooperationfits neatly in the innovation and R&D priority areas of thenational government.”