Member Profile

Randstad Region

Presentation of the Region

Zuid-Holland, as the leading province in the Vanguard Initiative is one of the 4 provinces of the Randstad region. Zuid-Holland is a densely populated province. More than 3.5 million people live, work and travel in an area of less than 3,000 square kilometres. Zuid-Holland has cities such as the port city of Rotterdam, the government city of The Hague and the university city of Leiden. In addition to cities, towns, villages and infrastructure, Zuid-Holland has rural areas with agriculture and nature, peace and space. The Zuid-Holland economy is in a transition. The Rotterdam port area is changing from a classic port economy into a knowledge-intensive complex, based on technology and IT, green raw materials and smart services. The horticultural sector is becoming sustainable to retain its position as the world's largest fresh produce production and trade centre. The knowledge infrastructure and business services become increasingly important in the developing innovative economic activities. Zuid-Holland has many locations where knowledge-intensive businesses and knowledge workers are concentrated around universities, knowledge institutes or large companies: the ‘knowledge axis’. Knowledge and innovative applications developed here can be used in strong clusters such as the mainport and the greenports. Contact between institutes and multinationals such as Shell, DSM and Unilever promotes the exchange of knowledge, people and resources.

Political Representatives
Jeannette Baljeu

Regional Minister

Brussels Contact Persons
jacqueline spuijbroek

EU representative

Regional Address

Zuid-Holland Plein 1
2596 AW Den Haag
Netherlands

Brussels Office Address

rue de treves 59-61
1060 Brussels
Belgium

Our Pilots

sustainability, energy, tree
A new paper of the Bioeconomy Pilot has published by the Open Access journal “Sustainability.”

In recent decades, industrial research has devoted enormous investments to demonstrate sustainable circular bio-based business models capable of overcoming the “Valley of

hands, earth, next generation
Progress update from the bioeconomy pilot

Talking on rural innovation and regions’ green transformation with the Bioeconomy Pilot

turn on, turn off, innovation
EVENT POSTPONED: How Smart is your RIS3? Cardiff 25-26 March

UPDATE:  Due to the ongoing situation with COVID-19 this conference has been postponed; we will provide further details once we are in a position to reschedule.  If you had registered to attend, yo

VI Regional Conference "Connecting innovation strengths across regions: a place-based approach to stronger European

      The recording of the event and the presentations ara available here