Experimentation environments
Experimentation environments have a prominent place in the Knowledge and Innovation Agendas drawn up around the social missions from the top sectors. The Netherlands has a high density of such environments, with varying names and emphases. They span what is often called the valley of death of innovation, the step from new technology or solution to application in practice. They form the setting for design-based research: the approach to complex challenges that leads to solutions through work while providing insight into the nature of the problems to be solved.
The challenge
There is an urgency in the innovation field to further align environments for experimentation with mission-driven innovation. Missions involve complex, long-term transitions that call for both technological and social innovation on an ongoing basis. The aim of the programme is to (further) develop environments for experimentation as key methodologies in such a way that they best fit the complex and long-term nature of the transitions envisaged by missions.
The Netherlands benefits from well-deployable experimental environments that optimally help to progress and deliver on social issues that not only we, but also the rest of the world, are facing. The programme aims at robust, cross-sector embedding of experimental environments in the innovation infrastructure that develops around the societal missions.
