Valorisation program IXAnext

To stimulate innovation, economic activity and entrepreneurship in both education and research, IXA developed and ran a six-year program (2017-2022): the valorisation programme IXAnext: Talent for Innovation. Some of its projects and facilities have found a more permanent place in de universities entrepreneurship infrastructure, such as:

• the incubators Amsterdam Venture Studios (AVS) and Demonstrator Lab is the place where researchers, teachers and students can develop and test their business ideas and accommodate their start-up activities.
• the programs of ACE (Amsterdam Centre of Entrepreneurship) for students and researchers who want to learn more about entrepreneurship. Their Explore program offers a two-day program to learn the basics of venture creation and in the Incubation programme ACE helps early-stage startups build their start-up with 12 weeks of training and support by leading mentors and business coaches.
• HvA Bachelor students have access to the 10k Pre incubator program which offers coaching and guidance in developing innovative and/ or sustainable ideas into a start-up during a 20 week program. After that they can join for instance Demonstrator Lab or AVS.
• the platform Startup and Running offers students with plans for a start-up a network to find mentors.
• with the Entrepreneurship cases teachers in Entrepreneurship find inspiration for their education program and lessons. The cases are still available and new cases will continously be added.
• The Research Facilities database helps Research & Development departments to find specialised, high-end equipment and instruments.

Successful but finished programs

For researchers seeking to collaborate with industrial partners, the program provided the Physics2Market Grant. which helped to bridge the gap between research and its application. With the Physics on Demand service companies and non-profits were able to benefit from the latest scientific expertise and research facilities.
The BlendedLearning pilot was developed to keep HvA-alumni with their own business up to speed with the latest insights and knowledge with masterclasses and courses.

An alliance and partnership

The IXAnext valorisation programme was an alliance between the Amsterdam universities and knowledge institutes: HvA, UvA, VU, AHK, Amsterdam UMC-VUmc and Amsterdam UMC-AMC and the NWO institutes AMOLF and NIKHEF.  The program offered facilities and funding, infrastructure, a network, educational measures and much more.

The IXAnext valorisation programme was made possible with a contribution of the City of Amsterdam.