Internationalisering

iPro-N

In the summer of 2019, the INTERREG project iPro-N closed. Over the past four years, iPro-N guided a total of 140 entrepreneurs and supported 64 prototype development projects. The province of Overijssel was one of the programme's funders, with Oost NL acting as lead partner.

  • Check out the most important facts and figures at www.ipro-n.eu - with many interesting videos about the innovations of participating companies.
  • Or download the final report (PDF), in which eight entrepreneurs talk about their prototype development.
  • In the meantime, the programme has continued with iPro-N Continued - where six projects are continuing to work on innovations. 

INTERREG projects such as iPro-N promote innovative cross-border cooperation between European regions and at the same time ensure economic development. The iPro-N project focused on the theme of Smart Industry: making products and production processes intelligent. Dutch and German companies were able to make use of the programme to jointly find solutions to innovation challenges.

Innovation through intelligent products

Due to the relatively high risk, it is often a big step for SMEs to invest in development. The financial contribution of iPro-N covered up to 50% of the costs. With this, entrepreneurs could partially finance a concept development, feasibility study or the construction of a prototype. Important steps towards the marketing of new products. In total, 8.6 million euros was invested in innovation and the programme raised 5.1 million euros from the business community itself.

The prototypes and participating companies developed under the iPro-N flag are diverse in nature: from the development of an electrically driven transport bicycle to transport a loaded pallet, to making extraction systems on cruise ships more energy-efficient. And from intelligent facades of buildings that indicate themselves when maintenance is required, to collaborative robots that assist people with simple and complex tasks.