The evaluation makes a number of recommendations to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate:
- Continue the involvement of the government in the ROMs and work on a broader (integrated) EZK client role. Clarify what is expected of the ROMs in terms of ecosystem development, supra-regional cooperation and social tasks
- Strengthen the development capacity of the ROMs, in order to be able to further develop regional ecosystems and give the ROMs more national financing, as the current financing is too much skewed towards the regional shareholders (now 80% region, 20% government), especially in view of the largely national tasks
- Give the ROMs a position in the implementation of large national and international programs, such as the National Growth Fund. The ROMs have a unique position as an implementation instrument of the government and the region
- Re-examine the shareholder instruction regarding investments. Groundbreaking technologies such as deeptech are high-tech, capital-intensive and have a long payback period. Different criteria regarding maximum term, maximum investment size and risk profile apply to this
- Continue the change of course from volume to value and focus more on attracting foreign companies that strengthen regional ecosystems
The Regina development companies also receive a number of recommendations:
- Better align the measurement of KPIs, paying more attention to the social impact of the ROMs' activities
- Set up a light, overarching structure such as ROM-Netherlands, especially now that a nationwide network has been created with 9 ROMs
- Work on regional, innovation ecosystem agendas
- Use the three core tasks (Innovation, Investment, Internationalization) even more integrated for ecosystem development. In tackling social tasks, there is also a role for new financing arrangements (public/private, subsidies/loans)
- Continue to expand the collaboration with Invest-NL and RVO
"We are very pleased with this evaluation. The ROMs play a crucial role in strengthening the innovative power of the Netherlands by supporting companies with investing, innovating and internationalizing. The evaluation also clearly shows that as a unique instrument of the central government and the region we can do much more for the national earning capacity, especially now that we as ROMs have nationwide coverage. It is therefore highly desirable that the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate increases the national contribution to the ROMs, as recommended by the evaluation. Because currently only 20% of the financing of the ROMs is by the central government, while many of the social tasks are national," says Rinke Zonneveld (chair of Regional Development Companies Netherlands).
“The ROMs receive an 8 from the surveyed business community in the evaluation, partly because of their network and focus on results. SME entrepreneurs face major challenges: production and process innovation to increase productivity, sustainability, digitalization. All more important than ever in these times. The ROMs can play an important role here,” says chairman Jacco Vonhof of MKB-Nederland.
Investing: Most active VC investors in the Netherlands
In the period 2016-2020, the ROMs were involved in no less than 45% of all venture capital investments in the Netherlands. This makes the ROMs by far the most active VC investors in the Netherlands. These are usually high-tech, innovative companies in an early phase. The ROMs finance in an extremely difficult landscape: they invest in those startups and scale-ups that the private market does not yet dare to enter, they nevertheless invest at market-conform conditions and are also expected to earn back their investment (revolving funds). Nevertheless, the ROMs managed to book €47 million in positive results in the evaluation period. Moreover, the ROMs are very successful in activating private capital. €1 from a ROM yields an average of €3-6 in private co-financing.
Innovate: Drivers of innovation and ecosystems
The ROMs stimulate innovation in SMEs in the areas of health, sustainability, food, safety, smart industry and circular economy. To this end, the ROMs work with companies and knowledge institutions on innovation projects and business cases, but also on preconditions for innovation such as field labs, availability of financing and the development of networks and programmes. Strengthening regional innovation ecosystems is an essential part of the ROMs' package of activities in the field of innovation. In terms of activities, organising financing for projects and the role as advisor and sparring partner are positively valued. This also applies to bringing companies together in consortia, whereby the neutral position of the ROMs appears to be an important incentive for confidence in mutual cooperation on innovative ideas. The supra-regional cooperation between the ROMs has increased in recent years, partly due to larger programmes within the framework of the mission-driven innovation policy, European programmes and the National Growth Fund.
Internationalization: NFIA and ROM's best practice collaboration
Since their inception, ROMs have had the task of attracting foreign companies to their region in order to stimulate the economy and employment in the regions concerned.
The 6 ROMs managed to realise 711 investment projects (65% above target) in the evaluation period, with €6.2 billion invested (almost 3 times the target) and almost 24,000 jobs created (10,000 more than the joint targets). The collaboration between the NFIA (Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency) and the ROMs is widely praised as an example of how government and regional executive bodies can work together. Since 2018, the ROMs' range of tasks has been expanded to include support for entrepreneurs in (further) international business. International trade promotion is of vital importance to the Dutch economy. The evaluation recommends that this relatively new task of the ROMs also be given a national financial boost.
The evaluation focuses on BOM, InnovationQuarter, Impuls Zeeland, LIOF, NOM and Oost NL. There are now 9 ROMs active in a nationwide network; in addition to the above six, Horizon Flevoland, ROM Utrecht Region and ROM InWest also belong to ROM-Nederland.
Read more about ROM InWest.
