TECH.LAND: making our ‘international region’ stronger

We meet next to the Bakery at Saxion Enschede: a pleasant and noisy environment, with different languages sounding around us. It is a fitting, international setting. For the record, when we mention the Eastern Netherlands in our conversation, we are referring to both Overijssel and Gelderland.

According to Leon Cremonini, the essence of TECH.LAND is appropriately summed up by the motto ‘Transforming borders into connections’: “In addition to Euroregional cooperation, the programme also puts us on the international map, through among other things, reciprocal visits and trade missions. This gives us both a regional and an international character.”

Larger pool
The international aspect of that character is also attractive to researchers and potential students. According to Leon, this will create a larger ‘pool’ providing more opportunities for them in the Netherlands and Germany. He emphasises that the overall goal of TECH.LAND is to improve the position of the region internationally, as a European hot spot for technological innovations; making every effort to increase mutual cooperation both qualitatively and quantitatively.
With regard to research, the programme is focusing on five different clusters: from hydrogen and the energy transition to robotics. In the field of education, for example, there are collaborations with European Interreg projects, Smart Solution Labs and the Euregional Continuous Learning Pathway (EDL). Leon: “Think about international internships becoming more accessible to students in the TECH.LAND region; that’s good news for them. This idea is supported by Janco Bonnink, Saxion’s managerial representative at the TECH.LAND partner meetings.”

Visible umbrella

The Triple Helix concept is key to how TECH.LAND aims to make the region more attractive and effective. This is where knowledge institutions, business and local government become more strongly interconnected. The programme’s founders are the Industrie und Handelskammer (IHK) Münster (Chamber of Industry and Commerce), Twente Board and Oost NL. Through these organisations, existing ‘connections’ can be used and further strengthened by getting many more stakeholders involved. Leon: “The TECH.LAND region is home to thousands of SMEs and more than 20 universities and universities of applied sciences. Meanwhile, more than 20 partners explicitly support us, and many companies participate in our events and Interreg projects. All these partners and parties now all fall under our ‘umbrella’, which was not necessarily the case beforehand.”

Although TECH.LAND is a strategic programme - with a start and end date - Leon also harbours a dream regarding the longer-term. He hopes the programme can grow into a kind of ‘Brainport of the East’, an organisation that will continue to exist and connect. TECH.LAND’s visibility is very important in order to achieve that goal; something that has been worked on a lot recently. For example, during the opening of the academic year, the prime minister cited the programme as a best practice of international cooperation. King Willem-Alexander also did the same during his recent visit to the Haus der Niederlande in Münster.

From energy to quality of life

The word ‘connections’ comes up many times during our conversation. Time to be a bit more specific. What about international hydrogen pipelines as part of the energy transition? The necessary collaborations for this were developed within TECH.LAND with respect to the Hydrogen Valley collaboration between North Rhine-Westphalia and the Eastern Netherlands. The intended result is a literal connection for our energy supply of the future.

Sometimes the idea for a new project can come about entirely within TECH.LAND. One example is associate professor Sustainable Building Technologies Twan Rovers’ FutureBEEing project. FutureBEEing arose from the idea ‘that international cooperation can promote future-proof building’. The project aims to ensure that residential areas in our international region can become more sustainable faster and more efficiently. For example, FutureBEEing not only focuses on the transition to renewable energy, but also on improving our quality of life. This is how TECH.LAND facilitates - directly and indirectly - a broad social impact.

Flagship

What Leon is particularly looking forward to is the TECH.LAND Xperience 2026: “This is going to be a huge event attended by 800 people. Once again, its core is all about making connections. I would like to invite people and organisations ‘from the Triple Helix’ to consider participating. You can attend several keynotespeeches, and visit stands promoting different innovative projects. It is really a flagship event for TECH.LAND. This is why I would also like to see us there, as Saxion, presenting ourselves at the highest level.”

Is it the case that the TECH.LAND Xperience - besides making new connections – is also about acceleration? To accelerate research within clusters such as ‘Batteries’ and ‘Health & Medtech’? “That is also about one of the core objectives,” Leon responds. “I don't know if I would really use the term accelerating in the first place, but rather scaling up. Simply because we still see so much potential. We have so many international contacts that we can use much more than we are now. And it all fits so nicely with Saxion too, as an institution that values internationalisation but also wants to remain anchored in the region.”

Being complementary

In everything that happens in TECH.LAND, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) serve as an inspiration and guiding framework for joint projects and ambitions. The programme focuses on clusters that are closely linked to the goals. For example, a cluster like ‘Circular Economy’ fits well with SDG12: Responsible consumption and production.

What specifically is Saxion’s added value in all of this? “The applied nature of our university of applied sciences is then a key point,” Leon responds. “We are complementary to an institution like the University of Twente, where the focus is on fundamental research. It's a really good match; you always have to look at what’s complementary.” In this regard, the Fachhochschule Münster has a research institute for the textile and clothing industry, for example, while the researchers at the Saxion research group Sustainable and Functional Textiles focus more on practical issues, weaving techniques and prototypes for circular textiles.

At the table

A stronger sense of unity in our international border region is perhaps what Leon hopes for most with TECH.LAND. “A top researcher at the university in Münster is also of interest to us,” he explains. “You automatically benefit from that because of the connections we make. At the moment, I am working hard to give Saxion a more prominent place at the table with the various clusters. I also hope we can have a more visible and broader presence internationally. Specifically, we want foreign partners - from universities to clinics and companies - to recognise TECH.LAND as a single entry point to our region.”

Researchers, Leon points out, look each other up; they have done so for centuries and always will. Leon himself came to Saxion mainly for the international, and even more specifically, European ambitions he saw there. He emphasises it again, in light of TECH.LAND: “We should not see a border between the Netherlands and Germany, but connections. Together, we are capable of so much more.”

Photography: Thomas Busschers