Wageningen University & Research (WUR) recently launched its Digital Innovation Hub (DIH) — an online hub created to support agri-food companies with digital transformation, according to a release.
With digital technologies slowly increasing, the European Union’s ability to remain competitive in the global economy, expand and create new jobs and maintain equality is put at risk. ‘Digitalizing European Industry,’ an initiative spearheaded by the European Commission, was developed to guarantee that all companies have the opportunity to benefit from the newest digital innovations.
DIHs are an essential part of the European Commission’s initiative, as these hubs allow companies to better understand ways to enhance their processes, products and services with digital technologies. To strengthen its position as a DIH for the agri-food domain, WUR launched its very own web page.
“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,” said Mireille van Hilten, senior researcher of business informatics agri-food at Wageningen Economic Research.
DIHs are not-for-profit, one-stop-shops that offer services including:
- Experiments with digital technologies that allow companies to learn more about new opportunities and the return on investment prior to an investment being made.
- Skill and training to get the most out of digital innovations, such as training programmes, online courses and traineeships.
- Support to seek out investments such as “feasibility studies, business plan developments, incubation & acceleration programmes,” shared the release.
- Opportunities for ecosystem and networking via marketplaces and brokerage activities.
“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,” added Mireille. “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 contains the current services offered by WUR and its partner institutes and organizations. For more information, visit the contact form.
