IMPACT 2025 – Topsector T&U Innovation Prize 2023

The Dutch horticultural sector is facing a number of challenges affecting its own future when it comes to innovation. However, innovation is also a crucial component for a healthy future, whether it concerns healthier eating or a more health-conscious living environment. Both aspects lead to improved well-being and are essential for the future. For this reason, contributions in any form that boost health are at the heart of this edition of the Innovation Prize.

• New horticultural products (plant species, varieties, cultivation methods, etc.) that add value in terms of health.
• Approaches and technologies aimed at extracting the essence of "health" from plants, thereby fostering the concept of green pharma.
• Solutions and concepts that activate people to eat more plant-based food.
• Solutions and concepts that activate people to use plants more to make the living and working environment more liveable.
• Innovations that create extra value and are linked to health and quality of life in the plant chain (bulbs, trees, flowers, plants, vegetables or fruit).
• Greenery in the city and living room for oxygen and well-being.

To answer these challenges, it’s essential that the horticultural sector, as a supplier of the 'plant', starts forging partnerships with other sectors such as healthcare, food, landscape design, high-tech, etc. (cross-sectoral innovations).