Wageningen University & Research launches website Digital Innovation Hub
Wageningen University & Research launches the website of the Digital Innovation Hub. This website is set up to support companies in agri-food with digital transformation. The slow uptake of digital technologies can pose a risk to the European Union’s ability to compete in the global economy, to grow and create new jobs, and could be a source of inequalities. The European Commission’s ‘Digitizing European Industry’ initiative aims to ensure that all companies—whether large or small, in every industry and location—can benefit from the latest digital innovations. Wageningen University & Research is strengthening its role as a Digital Innovation Hub in the agri-food domain and has recently launched a web page to this end.
Digital Innovation Hubs, or DIHs, are a key component of the European Commission’s ‘Digitizing European Industry’ initiative. These hubs help companies understand how to improve their processes, products and services through digital technologies.
One-stop-shop for digital transformation
Mireille van Hilten, Senior Researcher Business Informatics Agri-food at Wageningen Economic Research: “WUR’s role as a DIH stems from two European projects that we coordinate: agROBOfood and SmartAgriHubs. We are currently in the middle of the process to translate our role as DIH into internal ways of working and processes. The creation of this web page is a first tangible result of the professional organization of WUR as a DIH for the broad agri-food sector in the Dutch region and across the EU.”
DIHs are not-for-profit, one-stop-shops that support companies – in particular small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) – and public organizations in their digital transformation, offering them services like:
Experiments with new digital technologies to understand new opportunities and return on investments before investments are made. This includes software, hardware, business models, but also demonstration facilities, co-design and piloting.
Skills and training to make the most of digital innovations, for example train-the-trainer programmes, online courses such as MOOCs, traineeships, and exchange of training material.
Support to find investments, including feasibility studies, business plan developments, incubation & acceleration programmes.
Ecosystem and networking opportunities through marketplaces and brokerage activities.
Wageningen Digital Innovation Hub for agri-food
“Imagine that work is being done on a robotic solution that sprays crop protection products in the field in a very targeted way and the company is looking for a test facility. At WUR we have these test fields and locations in-house that we use in our day-to-day research. Via our role as DIH, we can make them available to others as well”, Mireille tells us. “We can also think of finding financial sources to support the development of a prototype, or questions related to sustainable and innovative business models.”
The web page includes the current services that WUR, and partner institutes and organizations located on the Wageningen Campus like StartLife or FoodValley, can offer. The list is non-exhaustive: entrepreneurs, startups, and companies looking for services in agriculture, food, fishery, education, and environment, are invited to get in touch via the contact form.