PRESS RELEASE: Bright European summer for Holst Centre

Outstanding acceptance rate and individual scores of project proposals illustrate success of open-innovation initiative

Over the past weeks, Holst Centre, an open innovation initiative by IMEC (B) and TNO (NL), received positive news about a large number of European project proposals. With an acceptance rate of around 50%, it harvests the fruits of an intense period of submitting close to twenty proposals. The high success rate and good individual scores illustrate that Holst Centre has built a leading expertise in its domain over the three and a half years of its existence.

During the first half of 2009, Holst Centre submitted around twenty proposals for the 7th European Framework Program (FP7), Artemis, Eniac and Marie Curie. After independent peer review, almost half of them were accepted; an astonishing number compared to an average overall success rate below ten percent. What’s more, most of the proposals were ranked top-3 and some even best in class in relation to competing proposals in their domain.

Paul Blom, Scientific Director Systems-in-Foil at Holst Centre: “We are extremely proud of this result. It confirms that the expertise of Holst Centre and its partner network holds a leading position in Europe and the world. It also proofs that our research focuses on the topics that are relevant for the societal challenges identified by European policy makers.”

For Holst Centre, the opportunity to participate in European projects not only strengthens the relationship with existing partners; it also opens possibilities towards new partnerships. European project teams are typically balanced between larger companies, SMEs, research institutes and universities. This perfectly matches with Holst Centre’s position in the value chain to bridge the gap between academia and industry. It also supports its open-innovation business model of joining forces in a pre-competitive stage to bring innovative products faster to the market.

Typically, European projects run for three to four years. Some of the recently approved programs are already running and others will kick-off later during summer. In total, Holst Centre now participates in close to twenty projects, for five of which it s also taking up the role of project coordinator.
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