What can NV NOM do for you?

About the NOM and TopDutch

The NOM is the Investment and Development Agency for the Northern Netherlands and comprises the three Northernmost provinces – Groningen, Friesland and Drenthe – which together form the economic region TopDutch. In the TopDutch region we provide green and digital solutions for global challenges and encourage talent to be great.

The NOM is one of nine Regional Development agencies in the Netherlands. Our objective is to stimulate the economy and employment in the Northern Netherlands by investing in promising companies, attracting new companies, sharing knowledge and experience with entrepreneurs and by making our large network available to anyone who can benefit from it.

Focus sectors

The Northern Netherlands has an abundance of natural resources, which has resulted in the development of a number of key industries. But as the global economy is under a large-scale transition, the Northern Netherlands is also transforming its key industries: making them smarter, healthier and more sustainable. How? By collaborating, whether that be cluster-collaboration, cross-provincial collaboration or even cross-border collaboration.

Green Chemistry

The Northern Netherlands’ most complete and ambitious Green Chemistry ecosystem, Chemport Europe, will be the first chemical cluster in the world to be fossil-free, co2 negative and circular by sharing raw materials, sharing technologies and sharing investments.

Energy

The Northern Netherlands is investing in infrastructure, education, and innovation for green energy and is particularly focusing on becoming the Hydrogen Capital of Europe, so billions of euros are being invested into building the number one ecosystem for green hydrogen in Europe. For example, HYZON motors set-up Europe’s first hydrogen truck plant in the region.

WaterTech

The Northern Netherlands is considered the WaterTech Capital of Europe. The Water Campus in Leeuwarden is an innovation leader for sustainable water technology. A complete chain of innovation is offered from the Water Campus: from science, to applied research and business, all from one location.

Life Sciences and Health

The TopDutch region has a healthy life science ecosystem. More scientific and applied research for healthy ageing genetic and lifestyle innervations is performed here than in any other region in the Netherlands, with some very exciting projects, such as the world’s largest multigenerational cohort study from Lifelines biobank. The Life Science ecosystem collaborates extensively with our other key industries, such as the AgriFood ecosystem or high-tech MedTech factories, such as SHINE medical, which will make medical isotopes in the region without using a nuclear reactor.

HTSM

Dubbed the Region of Smart Factories, TopDutch invests and educates for Industry 4.0 across all ecosystems. Technologies Added is a shared smart factory that’s attracted some of the hottest young start-ups from across Europe. Smart Industry Hub Noord assists companies in the region in becoming smarter.

ICT

Leading in education, research and development for digital innovation, the TopDutch region is quickly becoming one of the smartest regions in the world. They collect and process astronomical amounts of data daily, not least in ASTRON – a global hub of expertise in radio astronomy. The top-100 University of Groningen united with Hanze and NHL Stenden universities of applied sciences as the University of the North, is world-renowned for their research centres focusing on Big Data, High Performance Computing and Deep Learning.

AgriFood (Smart faming, transition to plant proteins)

From within its agricultural hinterland, the TopDutch region plays an important role in solving social problems. From multinational to farmer, from scientist to start-up – in the Northern Netherlands they all work together on solutions to the global food problem and the transition to a sustainable society. We’re feeding the demand for plant-based proteins by extracting valuable nutrition from everything from potatoes to grass. We also enhance industry performance through smart farming by designing and implementing the sensors and IoT processes to optimise performance at the earliest opportunity.