Prime Minister Rutte visits Groningen: ‘Here, the city, the UMCG, the Hanze University and the University all strengthen each other’

Groningen is well on the way to becoming the knowledge and innovation city of the Netherlands, Prime Minister Rutte concluded yesterday after a working visit to the University of Groningen and the Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen. He was impressed by the success of cooperation at the interface between the knowledge institutions and the business world. The Prime Minister also praised the fruitful way the municipality of Groningen, the University and the Hanze University pull together.

In the Linnaeusborg, the Prime Minister visited the Carbohydrate Competence Center (CCC), a knowledge centre for innovation in the field of carbohydrates. Businesses from the dairy, potato and sugar industries that cooperate with the CCC showed the Prime Minister how they apply the latest biotechnological developments to bring new products to the market.

Rutte also visited CUBE050, an initiative of the University and Hanze University where entrepreneurial students can take the first steps towards starting their own businesses. He spoke there to Aalder Haijer, who as a student of chemical engineering has founded the engineering bureau Water and Energy Solutions. The bureau specializes in the realization of energy savings in the process industry by optimizing water, electricity and gas facilities.

‘The city, the UMCG, the Hanze University and the University all strengthen each other’, said Rutte at the end of his visit. ‘I was here a few years ago when you were working on your ambitions. Then everything was in the planning stages, now significant steps have been taken.’