Thursday, March 12, 2026
During the Health Valley Event in Nijmegen, seven regional innovation ecosystems, including Medical Delta, signed the manifesto 'Accelerating Through Collaboration'.
This marks the start of a structural collaboration to apply and scale human-centered technology and social innovation in healthcare and health more quickly—innovations that help people stay supported in their own living environment for as long as possible while also reducing pressure on healthcare professionals.
The signatories are Sigra, Health Valley, HEALTH Noord, Health Hub Utrecht, Care Innovation Center West-Brabant, Brightlands Smart Services Campus and Medical Delta. Over the next four years, they will work together with national partners to develop a joint strategy and roadmap, a shared approach, and a common infrastructure (both cross-regional and regional-national). The focus is on innovations that enable people to remain as independent and healthy as possible in their own environment, supporting both formal and informal care, with health and wellbeing as the central guiding principle.
The seven ecosystems are taking this initiative together with FME, Health~Holland, and TNO, with support from the MBO Council, Association of Universities of Applied Sciences, and Regional Development Agencies.
Bringing work, learning, and innovation together
The collaboration has a twofold focus: connecting regional innovation capacity to the regional transformation challenges in healthcare and wellbeing, and more effectively directing this regional innovation capacity towards health. To achieve this, the partners link regional, cross-regional, and national stakeholders across healthcare practice, education, and technology development.
By intertwining work, learning, and innovation—and by connecting companies early to concrete challenges—innovations can be developed in a demand-driven way and implemented more quickly in practice. This requires regional strategies, for example, on how technology becomes a structural part of education and how healthcare professionals, clients, and informal caregivers are actively involved in developing and implementing technology and social innovations. Many regional ecosystems are already working on these issues.
There is still significant potential to improve health outcomes and workplace satisfaction through smart optimizations in healthcare, and the participating ecosystems aim to contribute to this. They also seek to more deliberately focus their regional innovation capacity on health and prevention. By reducing healthcare demand itself, staff shortages can be addressed more structurally. In doing so, they emphasise a strong connection between technological and social innovation and actively seek alignment with national networks and agendas.
Human-Centred innovation, implementation, and scaling
Healthcare demand is increasing, staff shortages are growing, and pressure on professionals is rising. At the same time, many technological and social innovations remain stuck in pilot phases, and the development, implementation, and scaling of human-centred technology lag behind. For these parties, this is a clear call-to-action. The regional innovation ecosystems are now aiming to change this by jointly addressing these bottlenecks.
The initiative combines strong regional and regional-national collaboration, human-centred and integrated innovation, and a joint approach to innovation development, implementation, and scaling. The regions no longer want to develop and apply successful solutions in isolation; instead, they aim to learn from each other, improve solutions together, and scale them collectively. Opportunities and bottlenecks—such as funding, regulation, and education—are also addressed in coordination with national partners.
Harnessing Synergy
“There is a lot of synergy between the regional innovation ecosystems. We share similar objectives and a regional approach with national and international impact,” says David de Glint, Managing Director of Medical Delta. “By collaborating even more deliberately, we learn from each other and strengthen not only the individual regional ecosystems but also the cross-regional infrastructure for innovation, implementation, and scaling proven solutions in healthcare and health. In this way, we contribute to the essential transformation needed to keep healthcare accessible, adequately staffed, and affordable.”
Health~Holland commented: “By connecting regional entrepreneurship, innovation, and societal challenges, we increase both social impact and economic potential.”
“Acceleration requires a coherent approach, both regionally and nationally,” says Martin Kirch, Director of Health at TNO. “We connect the development of human-centred technology with implementation and scaling. This is crucial for achieving structural change.”
“Technology can relieve pressure on healthcare professionals and improve access to care and overall wellbeing. But only if that technology is scaled regionally and cross-regionally. By linking regional knowledge and capacity at the national level, we make that acceleration possible,” says Iris van Bemmel, Health and Care Segment Manager at FME.
Long-term Collaboration
The signing does not mark a symbolic moment, but the start of a long-term collaboration. The ambition: better access to healthcare, reduced pressure on professionals, and faster implementation of healthcare and health technologies — not in just one region, but across the Netherlands. Regional and national parties are invited to join this initiative.
Also read (in Dutch): Zeven regio’s slaan handen ineen om innovatie voor zorg én gezondheid sneller in praktijk te brengen | FME
Photo's: Martijn Schmidt
