TNO’s international activities increase to 30% of TNO’s total revenue

TNO has been a partner of the Task Force Health Care (TFHC) since 2012: ‘’It all began with the Health Mission to Turkey led by Minister Ploumen. In the proceedings of this trade mission TNO Healthy Living decided to join the TFHC,’’ says Jan Michiel Meeuwsen – TNO Country Manager Turkey.

The role of TNO is to strengthen the Dutch society and business sector by means of innovation. The organization is divided into five themes, each with a different focus area. The theme ”Healthy Living”  is affiliated with the Task Force Health Care and employs around 500 people (out of 3000 TNO employees). “TNO was founded over 80 years ago,” says Meeuwsen, “but only started the internationalization process in the last two decades. Unfortunately, TNO experienced a significant decline in support from public funds in recent years. Our international business activities partly compensate for this loss and compromise approximately 30 % of TNOs total revenue (€550 million). Needless to say, entrance to TFHC’s extensive international network is of great importance for our
organization [to improve access to our target groups].”

From a business perspective, “innovation” can be difficult to sell as it is not a tangible product. This rings true especially in countries without EU funding. However, this does not stop TNO, which has eyes for opportunities on a global scale. Meeuwsen: “We strategically focus on a set of priority countries, such as Turkey, Singapore and the Caribbean. In addition, TNO has various branch offices in the US, Japan and Brazil. Looking at Turkey the Task Force Health Care was of great value for us. It all began with the Health Mission to Turkey led by Minister Ploumen.’’ In the proceedings of this trade mission TNO Healthy Living decided to join the TFHC. This mission was the first step towards a secure foundation of a vast business network in Turkey. These days, as a result, two major projects (est. worth €1.6 million) are running as we speak.
The first project is an Occupational Safety & Health project. This project named ESPrIT, formed its objectives to facilitate the awareness and registration of occupational diseases in Turkey. With the Public Health Institution of Turkey as the coordinator, TNO, the University of Gent and the Free University of Amsterdam assist the Turkish colleagues in developing a more apt system of notification of occupational diseases in Turkey. The project will run for 3 years and is the only Twinning project from Turkey under the Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation HORIZON 2020 work program that got funded. The second (3 year) project named POWER2DM, is focused around Diabetes and is based in Ankara. In cooperation with a Turkish partner SRDC the main objective of POWER2DM is to develop and validate a personalized self-management support system (SMSS) for Type-1 and Type-2 diabetes patients. The extent to which POWER2DM will reach its objectives and empower diabetes patients to become co-managers of their own health is being evaluated in 3 pilot studies in 3 different European countries; Germany (IDK), Netherlands (LUMC), Spain (SAS).

‘’We are very proud of these projects,’’ says Meeuwsen. ‘’Reverting to TFHC, the expectation we had of intense cooperation (with other TFHC Partners) and cooperatively develop the international markets has not always been the case. However, this was mainly due to TNO’s own lack of initiative. Nonetheless, the numerous activities and projects, especially on international level, TFHC provides for its partners carry high potential and have been of great value to TNO.’’

Jan Michiel Meeuwsen, TNO Country Manager Turkey.

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