Students and businesses learn and innovate together

How to further stimulate cooperation between business and education? CHILL Venlo is fully committed to this. A good example of this is Niels Peeters' cooperation with CHILL, which has been running pilot projects in cooperation with CHILL and students from various educational institutions since last year. Through CHILL Venlo, students and companies at Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo work together on concrete research questions from practice.

Campus residents Innoveins Seed Solutions, Botany, Brightlabs and Compas Agro put their heads together last year to think together about how they could become even more attractive to students, for example by working together more and better. This led to the Greenport Innovation and Learning Labs program. Now CHILL Venlo. Through this project education and business will work together on concrete research questions that companies have.

Agrofood

At Brightlands Chemelot Campus, the concept of CHILL has existed for more than 13 years. CHILL's programs focus on lifelong development and are the springboard to success for tomorrow's leaders and employees. On Sept. 4, Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo and CHILL signed a letter of intent to continue together in Venlo as CHILL Venlo. But while CHILL's focus is on chemistry, materials and circularity, CHILL Venlo chooses healthy and sustainable food and future farming. Through this new program, students will have the opportunity to work with companies and organization on real issues from practice. In this way students contribute to the region, companies can innovate in an accessible way and the educational institutions involved can use their knowledge and skills for the region.

Talents attract and retain

One of the driving forces behind CHILL Venlo is Niels Peeters, director of campus resident Innoveins Seed Solutions. "As companies we needed inflow and continuity of students and you can only achieve this by making a good link between companies and knowledge institutions. This is what we hope to achieve through CHILL Venlo. This is not only about cooperation around innovation issues. Through CHILL Venlo students also get acquainted with the campus and the companies on campus. These students are our employees of the future, so it is good that they see what is possible here so that - in the future - they will continue to work and live in the region. So it's also really about engaging and binding talents."

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On sight

According to Niels, many students do not have agri-food on their sights. "When you study at a laboratory school, for example, the first thing that comes to mind is not agriculture and horticulture as a possible employer. But precisely in plant research there is a lot of variety and many opportunities for students with a laboratory background. People come to work here because of the diversity, the subjects and the projects. So hopefully through CHILL Venlo we can also introduce them to this beautiful world."

Countries

CHILL Venlo is focusing on four topics so far. Brightlands and Compas Agro are looking into the theme of bioactive content substances, Fontys GreenTechLab is working on green engineering together with Compas Agro and Botany, Innoveins Seed Solutions is on the line for the theme of seed optimization and Compas Agro is committed to soil health with HAS Green Academy. The Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo project team is taking charge of the organization. "Through our colleagues at CHILL, we got a clear picture of how to set up such a system properly. We also like working with them because certain innovation issues are now campus-transcending. Together we look at where the students can best land: the work takes place where it fits best."

Teams

The students work in multidisciplinary teams on innovation issues. "We ran an initial pilot last year where an applied biology student from HAS Green Academy and an Applied Science student from Zuyd University of Applied Sciences worked together on bioreactors. This is really about the combination of biology and chemistry. Besides the different knowledge coming together, you also put different types of people together who are one hundred percent complementary to each other. This creates beautiful new insights and concrete solutions."

The results of the pilot project are promising, according to Niels. "We got answers to our questions and it was 100 percent as expected. Only process-wise we still see some challenges," Niels says. "Because you work with students from different programs, you also have to deal with different learning plans (curricula). So it is very important to see where the needs and interests of both the school and the student lie, so that we as companies can respond well to this."

Hatchery

The campus, according to the initiators, is the ideal setting to grow into the connector of business and education in agri-food. "The campus has the appearance and opportunities to attract students, which we as companies have a huge need for," Niels says. "The campus also fits well with the business model of the companies involved, which all conduct independent research for companies in horticulture: from startups and SMEs to large multinationals. As companies, we make our facilities and know-how available. Together we can create a physical learning and working environment to make research - equipment and techniques - accessible to companies and students. This also makes the campus even more attractive as an incubator for innovation."

Sustainable collaboration

With the signing of the declaration of intent between CHILL and Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo, the go-ahead has been given for a sustainable cooperation in the province. With funds made available by the province of Limburg and the Cooperating Network of Ecosystems in Limburg (SNEL), it will be made possible to increase the carrying capacity and eventually become an independent entity. Niels: "We hope to hook more schools in the future and take on even more topics. We really want this to become a sustainable collaboration between education and business in which we focus on talent development, embedding knowledge in the schools and increasing innovation power and developing knowledge together. Together with CHILL, the success rate for this is greatly increased."

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