Dutch Innovation Days puts a (soft?) end to the event
“No more Dutch Innovation Days in Enschede. But maybe DID will reappear in another place.”
Published on February 22, 2025
Peter Oosterwijk (center) during an inspiration session at the DID headquarters in Enschede (2024)
Bart, co-founder of Media52 and Professor of Journalism oversees IO+, events, and Laio. A journalist at heart, he keeps writing as many stories as possible.
After four intensive years, the Dutch Innovation Days is now history. Led by Peter Oosterwijk, the festival brought art, science, and technology to life around the theme of typical Dutch innovation. With thousands of visitors and hundreds of speakers, DID created a close-knit innovation community that IO+ also felt part of. The festival will cease - “for now” - because of crippled budgetary support from the municipality of Enschede and cutbacks at universities. Oosterwijk stresses at the same time that “the spirit of innovation lives on in the new ‘Chain of Innovation’ program". This initiative focuses on peer-to-peer development in cities throughout the Netherlands.
Despite the end of DID, Oosterwijk is not entirely shutting the door. “No more Dutch Innovation Days in Enschede. Maybe DID will reappear in a different place - in a different form, at a different time.” Oosterwijk shows pride in the result achieved. “In recent years, we have built a community of 8,000 innovation enthusiasts. We have seen new ideas and collaborations emerge. But without a long-term commitment from the Municipality of Enschede and in times of budget cuts at Universities, it is not possible to sustainably continue a festival of this size. Despite the support of many loyal sponsors, the financial base is too narrow.”
What will happen to the 'Dutch Innovation' brand in the short term is not yet known.
Dutch Innovation Days at IO+
Innovation Origins - IO+'s predecessor - wrote a series of articles about the event around the 2023 DID. Read it all back here.
Cuts
The stopping of DID is not an isolated event but coincides with broader cuts in the Dutch knowledge landscape. The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) warns that 90% of planned cuts to scientific research will go ahead. These cuts will have far-reaching consequences for innovation across sectors, from healthcare to agriculture. Funding for large-scale scientific infrastructure is shrinking by 30 million euros per year. This directly impacts festivals and initiatives such as DID that rely on university and municipal support.
Transformation
Despite the end of DID, initiator Peter Oosterwijk remains committed to innovation. As an innovation strategist, he supports organizations to make innovation and transformation processes more valuable. The Chain of Innovation initiative will focus on peer-to-peer development in several Dutch cities; on a smaller scale than DID but with the same goal, according to the initiator.