Photonics in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands we have different photonics initiatives on a national level

National Agenda Photonics

On Friday 13 July, the ‘Nationale Agenda Fotonica’ (National Agenda Photonics) has been presented to the State Secretary of Economic Affairs and Climate, Mona Keijzer, by Benno Oderkerk, chair of PhotonicsNL. This agenda came about in cooperation with PhotonicsNL, DOC and PhotonDelta. The aim of this National Agenda Photonics is to intensify and to speed up the application of photonics technologies for solving societal challenges and for creating new commercial activities. Amongst others, efforts will be made to join forces nationally: collective initiatives and clusters will be introduced, in which the Netherlands will present itself as one coherent photonic region. In the Netherlands six clusters of companies and knowledge institutes have been identified, for six favourable application domains: Health, Manufacturing, ICT, Semicon, Energy & Environment and Agriculture & Food. For the investment initiatives within the framework of the Nationale Agenda Fotonica a total investment amount of approximately 60MEuro per year is foreseen, that will be financed partly publicly and partly privately. This is an intensification next to the hundreds of millions that are now being invested in the photonics market. 

Download the National Agenda Fotonica in Dutch or in English. 
Read the press release sent out on 13 July. 
You can also take a look at the website of the Nationale Agenda Fotonica. 

Photonics Roadmap

Read our vision about the societal impact and latest development of Photonics in the Netherlands in our roadmap. This roadmap was finalized in April 2018 and formulates the future of photonics, on which we want to unite our colleagues from the academic world, businesses and government. The roadmap is based on the following starting points:
  • Strengthening excellence
  • Substantial contribution to societal challenges
  • Increase return from research
  • Attention to educating human capital

Download the photonics roadmap 2020.
Download the photonics roadmap 2018.

Photonics lights up Dutch manufacturing industry

What is photonics exactly? What can we do with it and what position does the Netherlands have on the international stage? This report, made by PhotonicsNL and ABN AMRO, sheds light on this interesting field.

Read the report in English
Read the report in Dutch

Dutch Topsectors

The Netherlands has a position in the top twenty of the largest economies in the world and is regarded as an important knowledge generating country. Our country has indeed a long history of inventions, we sailed the world oceans and traded with many other countries. The present societal challenges stimulate our innovation strength and Dutch solutions provide new products and services in the worldwide market. These challenges called for a new disruptive approach of smart collaboration between companies, researchers and the government: “The Topsector Policy”.

The nine topsectors are:

Photonics is part of the High Tech Systems & Materials (HTSM) topsector. The R&D agenda has been assigned by the HTSM top team to roadmaps which are an integral part of the Innovation contract of HTSM with the government. Every roadmap team has representatives from industry, institutes, National Science organizations and scientists from universities and have defined the ambition of the roadmap. Photonics is recognized by the HTSM topsector as Key Enabling Technology.