Tilburg University partner in Region Deal Central Brabant

Regional Deals are a cooperation between the Government and the region to boost the quality of life, housing, and work of both residents and entrepreneurs. In the Regional Deal of Central Brabant, this takes various forms, including testing grounds for sustainability, livability & well-being transformation challenges. In these testing grounds, experts, researchers, students, and creative makers from the region will be working together for the next four years on finding new solutions to these important social issues. 

The Ministry of the Interior has awarded € 12.5 million to the Regional Deal. Various parties have added to this amount, making a total of over € 30 million available.

Projects

Tilburg University fulfils a role in five of the nine projects in the Regional Deal.

• Within the Sustainability Testing Ground, we join forces with the business community in the Tilburg Initiative for Future Logistics to speed up the transition to sustainable logistics based on scientific expertise.
• In the Livability and Well-Being Testing Ground, we will be working with Fontys, Elisabeth-TweeSteden Hospital, the Cities of Tilburg and Waalwijk on boosting the livelihood security and well-being of residents in vulnerable neighborhoods. Our work includes research and practical experiments, conducted under the title of Neighborhood approach focusing on livelihood security and well-being. 
• As a member of the MindLabs Association, we are involved in the Digitization and AI Testing Ground, in which the Digital Innovation District for Society project aims to boost expansion of the ecosystem of the Spoorzone innovation district, with a key role for MindLabs. This results in projects, activities, and facilities that contribute to the improvement of broad prosperity, such as challenges in which students and business partners learn together and conduct research together into the opportunities for empathic virtual humans in areas including healthcare, media, and education.
• Lastly, we are an important partner in two projects aimed at scaling up social innovation.
  • In the Startups for Society project, various parties from the region join forces to build an ecosystem for impact startups in Central Brabant. They are receiving a fitting range of support services for successful growth while making an impact on society at the same time, further boosting the regional profile of people-oriented entrepreneurship and innovation. 
  • Within the Improving sustainable business practices for the SME sector project, the university works with Midpoint Brabant, companies, and other parties to develop sufficient tools that the SME sector can use to comply with the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) in a cost-efficient manner. This EU Directive obliges companies to report more extensively on their sustainability performances. Although the CSRD mainly applies to larger businesses, SMEs supplying to these businesses can expect to have to justify their own sustainability performances.

Additional information

If you have any questions about Tilburg University's involvement in the Regional Deal, contact:

• Mignon Wuestman, Ecosystems developer: m.l.wuestman@tilburguniversity.edu
• Edward van de Pol, Ecosystems & Entrepreneurship Strategist: Edward.vandePol@tilburguniversity.edu

Would you like more information about the Central Brabant Regional Deal and the nine financed projects? Please check out information on the Regional Deal on the Midpoint Brabant website (in Dutch).