The Netherlands is a world leader in science, but faces a structural bottleneck: much knowledge is still not sufficiently finding its way into concrete breakthroughs in the fields of safety, energy, health, and digitalization. The proposed National Agency for Disruptive Innovation (NADI) is intended to bridge this gap between knowledge and application.
NADI focuses on accelerating disruptive, high-risk innovations with significant social and economic impact. Inspired by international examples such as the American DARPA, the concept combines high risk tolerance with fast, flexible financing across the entire innovation chain, from fundamental research to application.
In recent months, the Ministry of Economic Affairs has been exploring how such an organization could be established in the Netherlands. The results of this exploration were recently shared with the House of Representatives.
This clearly distinguishes NADI from existing innovation instruments, which often focus on long-term public-private partnerships and incremental innovation. NADI allows the Netherlands to join a broader European movement, alongside organizations like SPRIN-D in Germany and ARIA in the United Kingdom. Holland High Tech is pleased that this topic is on the House of Representatives' agenda and will follow its further progress with interest.
