Campuses now essential elements of municipal coalition agreements

Following the municipal elections of March 18, new coalitions have been formed, aldermen have been appointed, and governing agreements have been negotiated. But what do these agreements mean for the development of campuses, science parks, and innovation districts? Campus Consulting Group analysed the agreements of municipalities with more than 150,000 inhabitants.

The main conclusion: campuses have now become an integral part of both economic and spatial policy in virtually all major Dutch cities.

Campuses are no longer viewed solely as locations for knowledge institutions. They are increasingly seen as instruments for talent retention, scaling innovative companies, advancing strategic technologies, supporting regional employment, and fostering urban growth. Only two municipalities do not explicitly mention campuses in their agreements. Haarlemmermeer focuses on innovative sectors but does not refer to a specific campus, science park, or innovation district. Amersfoort has several building blocks for a future innovation-district approach, such as its central location, strong station-area developments, major urban projects, regional cooperation, and energy hubs, but its coalition agreement does not yet translate these into a coherent economic proposition, let alone a dedicated campus development policy.

The most concrete development agendas

Rotterdam explicitly links Life Sciences & Health to physical space. Through its Master Plan 2050, the city aims to add 220,000 square meters of business space to the Dijkzigt campus area, creating room for laboratories, startups, and scale-ups around Erasmus MC. In addition, Rotterdam has earmarked €544 million within its broader environmental vision for business locations and campuses connected to area developments. This represents a mature campus strategy in which knowledge, healthcare, capital, talent, and real estate are brought together within a single economic agenda.

Arnhem positions the Innovative Manufacturing District Arnhem as the spatial backbone of its energy and manufacturing profile. The agreement highlights areas such as Het Broek, Nieuwe Haven, and Cleantech Park Arnhem, linking them to innovation, grid congestion solutions, circular economy initiatives, and more efficient use of industrial land. Structural funding has also been allocated to both the Railway Zone and the Innovative Manufacturing District. Arnhem clearly treats the campus/district concept as a pillar of industrial transition rather than a standalone startup policy.

Breda adopts a particularly sharp profile around Applied Technology and Creativity, focusing on robotics, AI, gaming, creative technology, and entrepreneurship. The Innovation District is intended to become the physical location where startups, creative entrepreneurs, and innovative companies can “land, grow, and collaborate.” To support this ambition, Breda has allocated €1.8 million in operational funding and €4 million in investment funding. Together with Rotterdam and Tilburg, Breda is among the cities that not only mention innovation districts but also back them financially.

Tilburg follows the most traditional greenfield strategy. The city continues with Phase 1 of the Wijkevoort Innovation Campus: a 40-hectare development embedded in a green landscape and managed through municipal land policy and leasehold structures. Implementation remains dependent on a ruling by the Council of State, and no decision on Phase 2 will be taken during the current administrative term. The agreement combines this campus development with the revitalisation of existing business parks and ambitions to create innovation clusters and innovation environments.

Groningen embraces the broadest interpretation of campus development. The municipality supports the Zernike Campus, Vitality Campus, and Healthy Ageing Campus as places where education, research, and business collaborate. Zernike is also being transformed into a more complete urban district: the first 500 of a planned 1,500 homes for students and staff are intended to help create a “real campus.” Groningen also positions the Niemeyer Campus, including the AI Factory, as a digital hotspot for innovation, talent, and SME adoption. Here, campus development encompasses innovation, housing, amenities, education, and social interaction.

Enschede arguably presents the most integrated technology agenda. Kennispark Twente is expected to further evolve into a nationally and internationally recognised innovation cluster for key enabling technologies, advanced manufacturing, and collaboration between education, research, and industry. The redevelopment of the Vredestein site will strengthen Kennispark, while Technology Base Twente is prioritised as a development and testing location for defence applications, aerospace innovation, drones, and unmanned systems. The coalition also connects this agenda to the New Origin photonic chip foundry, accessibility improvements, and active lobbying efforts towards national and provincial governments. This is campus policy as regional industrial strategy.

The Hague has one of the most explicit urban innovation district agendas in this analysis, as reflected in its Central Innovation District (CID). The city aims to further develop the CID as a mixed urban environment where housing, employment, education, and innovation converge, while recalibrating its approach: placing less emphasis on the overarching CID brand and more on the identity and quality of individual sub-areas. A planned Campus Boulevard is intended to physically connect education, innovation, housing, and employment, potentially strengthened by the partial removal of the Bernard Viaduct to create space for offices, higher education facilities, student housing, green areas, and public spaces. The city is also pursuing two thematic campus strategies: an international cybersecurity campus centred around The Hague Security Delta and the House of Cyber, and Campus@Sea in Scheveningen, focusing on maritime security, food security, offshore critical infrastructure, and defence-related activities. Compared with cities such as Enschede or Groningen, The Hague’s approach is less reminiscent of a traditional science park and more strongly positioned as an urban, international, and security-focused innovation district.

Strong strategic ambitions, less detailed in real estate or funding

Eindhoven describes campuses as “the place for high-tech companies” and continues its “Grip op Campussen” strategy in cooperation with Brainport Development. The emphasis is on strengthening and facilitating existing campuses while creating room for high-tech companies, sustainable business parks, and key enabling technologies such as photonics. Unlike Rotterdam or Breda, Eindhoven’s agreement does not allocate a separate campus investment budget, but the political positioning of campuses is highly explicit.

Amsterdam adopts a broad innovation-economy agenda focused on AI and digital technologies, climate solutions, and health. The agreement aims to provide sufficient physical space, campuses, innovation hubs, and multi-tenant business facilities while strengthening the foundations of innovation districts. The ambitions are significant but generic: no specific locations, acreage, or dedicated investment amounts are mentioned. Amsterdam primarily focuses on ecosystem building, collaboration with knowledge institutions, and responsible technology development.

’s-Hertogenbosch positions its Innovation Quarter as the beating heart of the city’s FairTech agenda, promoting the responsible application of AI and digital technologies. The city seeks collaboration with vocational education institutions, universities of applied sciences, Brabant universities, and the Brainport ecosystem. The Innovation Quarter is also intended to support the development of digital and technical skills among young people. The direction is clear, but the agreement remains more programmatic than spatially or financially concrete compared with Breda, Tilburg, or Enschede.

Apeldoorn continues to develop its innovation district around security and resilience. Educational institutions, startups, scale-ups, the Ministry of Defence, the Police Academy, the Centre for Safety and Digitalisation, and private companies are expected to collaborate there. New Tech Park also receives support. Apeldoorn deliberately chooses specialisation, focusing not on innovation in general but on a campus-like environment centred on future security challenges.

Almere sees its High Tech Campus as a catalyst for manufacturing suppliers and for technical education at vocational, applied sciences, and university levels. The city aims to attract innovative, sustainable, and circular businesses while creating flexible workspaces for startups and scale-ups. Here, the campus functions primarily as a tool to strengthen the city’s economic profile and reduce commuter outflow.

Haarlem adopts a lighter, network-based campus approach. The municipality seeks to stimulate collaboration between educational institutions, businesses, and societal organisations while supporting facilities and hubs such as C-District, De Koepel, and Spaarnelabs. This strategy is less about large-scale area development and more about creating urban innovation infrastructure linked to vocational education, internships, and talent development.

Campuses primarily serving as educational, residential, or talent instruments

Utrecht Science Park is mentioned as one of the city’s key development areas. However, the relevant section of the agreement is primarily framed in a spatial planning context, emphasising the integration of amenities into a densifying, healthy city. Notably, Utrecht simultaneously plans to save €400,000 annually from 2027 onward by scaling back its startup and scale-up subsidy program. Campus development remains spatially important, but direct municipal support for innovation becomes more limited.

Nijmegen mainly approaches its campus from the perspective of student life and housing. The city seeks to increase vibrancy, sports facilities, cultural amenities, and services on and around the campus and supports student and employee housing developments there. It is also exploring the conversion of a HAN University building into student housing. While important to the city’s knowledge economy, the agreement does not present a separate agenda for innovation or science parks.

Zaanstad highlights the Techlands technology campus and Mainstage Event Campus as successful examples of linking education and industry. The emphasis lies on labour-market outcomes: internships, employment opportunities, talent development, and support for startup culture. There is no corresponding spatial development agenda for campus expansion.

Exceptions and terminology

Haarlemmermeer supports innovative and sustainable sectors such as ICT, technology, Life Sciences & Health, energy, and raw materials. However, the agreement contains no reference to a campus, science park, innovation hub, or innovation district. The municipality, therefore, pursues a sectoral strategy without a clearly defined spatial location for innovation.

A similar observation applies to Amersfoort. The agreement contains no explicit references to a campus, science park, knowledge park, or innovation district, nor does it include a dedicated economic agenda focused on innovation, startups, scale-ups, knowledge-intensive employment, or specialised business locations.

The terminology itself is also noteworthy. Within this set of agreements, the term “science park” appears explicitly only in Utrecht Science Park. The dominant vocabulary has shifted toward campuses, knowledge parks, innovation quarters, innovation districts, manufacturing districts, hubs, and innovation environments. This reflects more than semantics. It indicates that cities increasingly think in terms of mixed urban ecosystems where companies, education, housing, amenities, talent, and public challenges come together rather than in isolated research parks.

What does this reveal about the direction of major cities?

Three trends stand out.

First, space has become the core of innovation policy. Nearly all strong policy passages ultimately revolve around square meters, zoning plans, land policy, accessibility, campus housing, laboratory space, or better use of existing industrial estates. Rotterdam plans 220,000 square meters at Dijkzigt, Breda invests directly in physical space, Tilburg allocates 40 hectares, and Enschede expands Kennispark through the Vredestein redevelopment. Innovation policy without a real estate strategy has virtually disappeared from these agreements.

Second, the role of campuses has broadened far beyond the valorisation of knowledge. They are now instruments for strategic sectors and societal challenges: health in Rotterdam, energy and manufacturing in Arnhem, photonic chips and defence technology in Enschede, AI in Groningen and ’s-Hertogenbosch, security in Apeldoorn, high tech in Eindhoven and Almere, and creative technology in Breda. The campus has effectively become a local form of industrial policy.

Third, the strongest strategies are not solely about startups. They connect the entire value chain: talent, research, startups, scale-ups, established companies, manufacturing, housing, amenities, and accessibility. Groningen, Enschede, and Rotterdam are particularly successful in articulating such complete ecosystems. Their approach is therefore more resilient than policies focused only on incubators, events, or subsidy programs.

In other words, ecosystems and value chains have become the central organising principle. As Maurice Lambriex of Campus Consulting Group puts it: “The coming years will not be won by the region with the most attractive plans, but by the region that succeeds in organising sustainable collaboration. It is not about temporary projects, but about ecosystems that continue to attract companies, talent, and innovation ten or twenty years from now.”

At the same time, there remains a clear distinction between concrete implementation and strategic language. Rotterdam, Breda, Tilburg, Arnhem, The Hague and Enschede connect ambitions to measurable space, budgets, locations, and planning actions. Amsterdam, Eindhoven, and ’s-Hertogenbosch articulate strong directions but remain less specific regarding locations, phasing, and public investment. Utrecht demonstrates that hosting a prominent science park does not automatically translate into increased innovation funding; in fact, startup and scale-up support is being reduced.

The key takeaway is that major Dutch municipalities increasingly regard campus development not as a luxury amenity for knowledge workers, but as essential infrastructure for economic resilience, technological advancement, and future prosperity. The cities most likely to make a difference, however, will be those that translate this vision into land, buildings, accessibility, long-term programs, public leadership, and—above all—strongly embedded ecosystems and value chains.

What comes next?

Several nationally recognised top campuses are located in municipalities with fewer than 150,000 inhabitants and therefore fall outside the scope of this analysis. These include cities such as Maastricht, Leiden, Delft, Wageningen, and Sittard-Geleen.

In a follow-up article, we will take the perspective of these leading national campuses and examine how they align with municipal, regional, and national policy agendas.