ľ�ϸ���Ӱ��

How do you want to make an impact with your research? There are many different pathways to take, of which one is to bring your research to the market by setting up a small business, a startup. Since 2009, the non-profit startup incubator has supported researchers from Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ��, UMC Utrecht and Hogeschool Utrecht who want to explore this pathway. In these years they have helped more than 300 startups and seen great examples of people combining their academic careers with entrepreneurship.

UtrechtInc’s core focus lies on digital, scalable ideas - in which artificial intelligence/ machine learning, virtual reality/augmented reality, cloud, deep-tech, and digital twins are some of the commonly used technologies. UtrechtInc supports researchers with ideas within these fields through . The purpose of these programmes is to turn all assumptions that are always involved in the very early stages of an idea for a new product into facts by validating them. The programmes answer the questions: are there any assumptions in my idea? Is entrepreneurship something for me or not? Do I now have all the skills needed to start a company? 

Rutger van de Leur is one of the participants on the currently validation programme for science-based startups. In a recent , he explained that “We saw this gap between making and studying an algorithm in a research setting, and then applying it in practice. The idea for the startup is that we are going to provide a kind of marketplace platform to bridge that gap – to make it possible to easily deploy your algorithm in clinical practice”. He follows the programme next to his PhD and said that it “It’s really nice to get this reflection all the time on your idea. I think that the most important thing about the programme is the whole validation part. All the talking with different people, explaining our idea over and over again, getting different questions and adjusting it all the time –  I think that that’s really nice and the most important part of the programme. The workshops and the knowledge you need to have to have a startup are also important.”

If you would like to know more about UtrechtInc and the programmes they offer, you can subscribe to their newsletter via their , join one of their informal of their incubator or directly reach out to the team via: info@utrechtinc.nl.