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Brightlands Maastricht Health Campus turns 10!

25 May 2023

Make no mistake. The tenth anniversary will naturally be celebrated; there are plenty of great things to look back on. During this period, Brightlands Maastricht Health Campus has applied for 54 patents, set up 33 companies, and the employment at the campus has grown by over 3,000 jobs.

Jan Cobbenhagen, the man who has been at the helm of Brightlands Maastricht Health Campus since 2016: “All of the preset objectives have been achieved. We have an excellent team of experienced professionals here. There is a lot of enthusiasm to make the most of what we have. More and more researchers and entrepreneurs, driven people with ambition and bravery, want and aren’t afraid to take the leap to valorise their ideas with us. As an organization, we must of course also continue to grow and develop.” Jan Cobbenhagen is clearly a man on a mission. The Brightlands News editorial staff met with him for a chat.

 

Jan Cobbenhagen: “This obviously calls for a celebration! But even more interesting is the question how can we do our work even better?”

The numbers make it clear how well this focus on valorisation and entrepreneurship works. And yet, you are apparently still not completely satisfied. Why not?

“Valorisation may be one of the three core tasks of Dutch universities, but in practice the main focus - not to mention budget - is on education and research. The government initiates all kinds of programs for funding KTOs, but at the same time asks or requires these universities and UMCs to avoid as much risk as possible. This is so contrary to the practice; innovation demands an entrepreneurial approach and this simply can’t be done without taking some amount of risk. The reality is that not every startup becomes a success. Failing now and then is just part of the deal. This is why it’s so important to give people the space they need to do business, and this also involves taking risks. It is also true that costs take priority over benefits. Do you really want to innovate? You’ll have to invest. The last thing anyone starting a business needs is rules, restrictions and guidelines that are driven by risk aversion from a public perspective. A spin-off - and thus the valorisation entity - has to be able to be entrepreneurial, creative and flexible. If we are to take full advantage of opportunities, we need the freedom to maneuver and chart our own course. This is also the reason we want to make Brightlands Maastricht Health Campus a self-supporting and independent organization, with a full focus on valorisation and entrepreneurship.”

 

We have the opportunity to shape the future of innovation and entrepreneurship now, and in doing so, create a better world for everyone

Self-supporting, independent, charting its own course, a focus on valorisation, innovation and entrepreneurship: is this how you see Brightlands Maastricht Health Campus - and other KTOs - in ten years?

“Among other things. A lot more collaboration is the key: international, intensive, multidisciplinary, flexible, integrated. If we truly hope to find solutions to the global challenges of climate change, healthcare and sustainable development through innovation, then the lines between universities, the business community and government have to blur. When this happens, KTOs can be active beyond the walls of a single institution. This is when researchers, entrepreneurs and industry professionals work together under one roof, in so-called international and interdisciplinary innovation districts. Excellent examples include the various programs of the National Growth Fund and the Thematic Technology Transfer (TTT) programs, in which we naturally also take an active part.”

Do you make innovation easier by getting the industry more actively involved, in other words, the entrepreneurs?

“Absolutely. Professionals from different industries are used to translating smart inventions into commercially viable products. They can play an important role in identifying synergies between academic research and market demands. This is how we arrive at innovations that are relevant, timely and impactful.”

 

Up to now, we are unfortunately seeing some universities mainly paying lip service to innovation, and with still far too little with action

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What is necessary to turn the KTOs you envision into a reality?

“This mostly requires making clear choices and acting on them. Are we really going for innovation with impact? Do universities and UMCs actually see their KTOs as a catalyst for fostering an innovation culture both within and outside of their walls? If so, let’s make sure we do it right. Not halfway, not a little, not sometimes or sometimes not. This is definitely not obvious or easy. A public valorisation organization such as ours faces many challenges in performing its tasks - stimulating and achieving entrepreneurship and innovation. So much is uncertain. An organization like this that is committed to innovation requires a high degree of self-direction. Certainty and predictability are less self-evident. For universities and UMCs on the other hand, manageability, stability and control are important organizational keys to success. Due in part to increasing pressure from public opinion, risks are being avoided as much as possible. We must remain aware of these differences. For the universities and UMCs, this means that they have to be mindful of and give space to the entrepreneurial, risk-taking innovative nature of their KTOs. For KTOs, this means taking the importance of the rules of the knowledge institutes into account. This demands a balancing act from both sides. Conflict can be beneficial, however.”

In short, within these frameworks you advocate for more autonomy, more flexibility and a realistic, structural budget for university knowledge transfer offices?

“Yes, precisely. This ensures that the focus can actually be on valorisation. Make sure they can make fast and independent decisions, without red tape, delays or unproductive administrative rules. This was how we got our start at Brightlands Maastricht Health Campus in 2016. MUMC+ and UM weren’t afraid to take a fundamentally different approach to giving the valorisation element a different form and function. They did this by outsourcing valorisation to a professional organization that operates outside of the university and UMC, yet is still very closely connected to the institutions. This organization also covers the entire field, from patent application to eventual exit, as a shareholder of the spin-off it founded. We lead the way in the Netherlands with this approach, effecting the shift desired by politics and business, sometimes referred to as the fourth generation knowledge institute. Even Maastricht isn’t immune to political and public calls for “control” and risk aversion. It’s also important for us to channel this trend the right way, and make sure it doesn’t hinder innovation.”

Jan Cobbenhagen
Knowledge crossing borders is the Brightlands theme. Is that also how you envision valorisation and innovation in the near and distant future?

“This is the only way to do it! By working together, by breaking down walls, and by going beyond your own boundaries. We really need each other. At Brightlands, we’ve been doing this for ten years now. I am big ‘fan’ of bold, visionary interdisciplinary initiatives - often called ‘moonshot projects’ - that take concrete aim at solving the great challenges humanity faces. Take the exciting regenerative technologies being developed at research institute MERLN, and the ReGEN Biomedical regenerative pilot plant: if we are able to ‘grow’ tissues and organs, this means a revolution in healthcare. You won’t have a revolution like this if everyone just works for themselves; you need collaboration to do this. In other words, we still have plenty of work to do.”

Explained: Knowledge Transfer Office (KTO)

In order to optimize the valorisation potential, Maastricht University and Maastricht UMC+ decided to make the Knowledge Transfer Office (KTO) an exclusive part of Brightlands Maastricht Health Campus b.v., their joint venture with the Province of Limburg. This gave Brightlands Maastricht Health Campus the exclusive right to commercialize both knowledge institutes’ intellectual property and know-how. This didn’t serve to transform the company into a real estate campus, but instead, an innovation campus, the primary task of which is to launch knowledge institutes’ inventions on the market (valorisation).

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