During the Holst Innovation Day 2025, entrepreneurs, researchers, investors and policymakers came together around a shared mission: accelerating innovation from lab to market. A day full of energy, inspiring stories and concrete calls to action. Mayor Jeroen Dijsselbloem opened the day by referring to the ‘Ten Commandments of Gilles Holst’, a pioneer of applied research in the Netherlands. His principles, such as interdisciplinary collaboration, sharing knowledge and generating impact, still prove to be valuable and urgent in 2025.
Tjark Tjin-A-Tsoi, CEO of TNO, emphasized in his keynote the importance of an integrated approach: from knowledge to innovation, from start-up to unicorn. In addition to the strength of the Dutch triple helix – government, knowledge and business – he advocated adding a fourth helix: venture capital. Because although the Netherlands has unique opportunities, we are struggling with a productivity gap. According to Tjin-A-Tsoi, it is crucial to invest in the application and implementation of innovations. Major social challenges, such as defense and security, offer opportunities to strengthen R&D from a dual-use perspective. His call: invest jointly in R&D, accelerate the rollout of R&D infrastructure, and build high-tech mega clusters that contribute to both economic growth and social resilience.
Fabrizio Del Maffeo, co-founder of Axelera AI, shared his company’s impressive growth story in AI edge computing: from idea to over 200 employees in just four years. His message was clear: “Let start-ups and scale-ups grow!” He advocated for more patient investors, ‘patient capital’, which offers companies the time and space to sustainably build technology, team and market and less negotiation and coordination with institutions, for example about IP, so that there is more time for entrepreneurship.
The plenary programme was concluded with a panel discussion led by Jo De Boeck (former CTO imec), focusing on the four critical phases from innovation to impact:
- Research & Innovation – stimulate curiosity, activate young talent;
- Venturing – from idea to application: what problem do you solve?
- Team building – building a company requires more than technology; it requires entrepreneurship;
- Upscaling– don’t just invest in capital, but especially in people and collaboration.
The panelists shared a common message: activate the entrepreneur in yourself. And: work together to strengthen the availability of capital that grows with the pace of technology.
The afternoon focused on pitches, meetings and dialogue. Researchers and innovators showed how they translate societal challenges into applications with impact.
The Holst Innovation Day 2025 was more than an inspiring event. It was a joint assignment. The route from knowledge to application is clear – it is now up to us to accelerate.
Image: via LinkedIn Holst Centre
