Katalin Sebők, Vice President for Business Innovation of the NRDI Office, said at the founding event of the TIP in Kecskemét that the main goal is to bring the players of the innovation ecosystem on one platform to build a network that creates opportunities for connecting the knowledge capacity of universities and the needs of the business sector, and for cooperation across regions and disciplines. He stressed that Kecskemét-based platform is the 11th member of the network, which now leverages the knowledge base of 22 universities, 10 in the countryside and 12 in Budapest.

The Vice President said: platform partners can initiate national and international cooperation, become part of dynamic information flow, and thus gain knowledge that will facilitate their development projects, market penetration and the economic and social exploitation of their results. Companies can increase their competitiveness and turnover through innovations.

In response to a question from MTI, Katalin Sebők said that 5 national professional organisations have joined the TIP initiative, and 290 member organisations are participating in the system. He stressed that despite the pandemic, the TIPs have organised more than 130 actions and events, and the resulting partnerships have already led to actual developments.

Among the possible activities of the Kecskemét platform, in the field of engineering and IT the Vice President mentioned materials testing, automation and the design of special-purpose machinery. In the field of horticulture and rural development, she highlighted crop trials and technological improvements. Economic actors can also turn to universities for answers to their questions on corporate governance, market research and marketing, she added.

In his welcome speech, Tamás Fülöp, Rector of Neumann János University, said that the Kecskemét-based institution wishes to participate in the performance-oriented development of the Hungarian economy, in boosting the RDI potential that is outstanding at international level, and in the implementation of the objectives of the Smart Specialisation Strategy.

The university has already been involved in R&D as a kind of knowledge platform and innovation centre, and has been present in the fields of competence development, training, and knowledge transfer, he said.

He emphasised that in the future they intend to play a decisive role in increasing the competitiveness of Kecskemét and its region, as well as of present and future local companies.

According to Tamás Fülöp, the network of platforms is the most effective way for them to ensure qualitative progress in innovation performance.

Neumann János University also joined the Territorial Innovation Platforms (TIP) initiative launched by the NRDI Office in 2019 with the support of the Ministry of Innovation and Technology (ITM) and established its own platform.