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Frank Gielen, InnoEnergy Education Director, shares: “We will be looking at new support methods for researchers that not only develop the basic skills but actually go one step further and provide active support to develop innovative ideas into real services and products that will advance the sustainable energy transition. The unique support that InnoEnergy can offer in this context is to connect the entrepreneurial researcher with our innovation eco-system and prepare them for a real business creation (ad)venture in our Highway programme. So, this is our new scope: identify the best ideas from our research community and prepare them for our Highway.”

InnoEnergy is committed to fostering this essential link to research and supporting entrepreneurial researchers through activities such as:

• Sidewalk – Entrepreneurial researchers will be invited to this student entrepreneurship programme where a team of specialists support and help with the development of their ideas, and prepare them for the Highway.
• Highway® – Where real companies are created, fulfilling InnoEnergy’s goal to build high impact ventures. Frank adds, “This programme is open to the current PhD students, providing them with a sequel – in the form of a next step – to what they have been offered so far.”
• Portfolio Courses – Provided by iSE (The institute of Sustainable Energy by InnoEnergy), these online and blended courses offer energy professionals a wide range of innovation and entrepreneurship expertise.

Frank makes it clear that InnoEnergy sustains its commitment to support the PhD community : “InnoEnergy is an innovation engine. This means that we also need to constantly improve and innovate ourselves to make an impact. The evolution of the programme is a result of this innovation and the logical next step – to provide the opportunity for disruptive innovations, that are driven by research, to enter InnoEnergy’s business creation activities.”