Amsterdam, Netherlands - SEO Economisch Onderzoek

employment has no upward or downward trend, but fluctuates roughly around 1.8% (medium andhigh-tech industry) and 4% (high-tech services) over the last couple of years.Table 3-4: Employment in the medium and high-tech industry in the province Noord-Holland(NH) and the Netherlands (NL)2002 2003 2004 2005 2006NH NL NH NL NH NL NH NL NH NLEmployment 1.9 4.1 2.2 4 1.9 3.6 1.7 3.3 1.6 3.1in mediumand hightechindustry(% of totalemployment)Employment 3.9 3.7 4.5 3.9 4.2 4 4.3 4.1 4.1 3.8in high-techservices (%of totalemployment)1European Patent OfficeSource: Statistics Netherlands Statline (2005b)Table 3-5 gives a more direct measure of innovative output in the province of Noord-Holland. Itpresents the patent applications to the European Patent Office (EPO) for three disciplines:biotechnology, ICT and nanotechnology. ICT is clearly the strongest sector in terms of patentapplications, which corresponds with the assertion that the ICT sector is one of the sectors inwhich the Amsterdam region has a competitive advantage. Biotechnology is the second strongestsector, whereas the nanotechnology cluster is still in the stage of infancy. The number of patentapplications varies considerably over the years and has declined in all sectors between 2004 and2005. The share of Noord-Holland in the total number of Dutch patent applications to EPOroughly varies between 6 and 9% over the period 2001-05. This share can be considered whenmeasured against the economic importance of the province, given the fact that 18.2% of the GDPis earned there (Statistics Netherlands Statline, 2006a).Table 3-5: Patent applications in Noord-Holland to the European Patent Office (EPO) bytechnology2001 2002 2003 2004 2005Biotechnology 16.2 27.5 24.6 34.3 25.0ICT 58.1 57.7 42.4 57.1 45.3Nanotechnology 0.6 0.6 1.8 0.7 0.4Share of region 6.4% 8.0% 7.9% 9.3% 7.7%in country’s totalpatensTotal patents 245.9 277.0 271.1 329.3 258.7Source: OECD (2006)3.6 Responding to regional needs and demandsThe Amsterdam metropolitan region has four major HEIs: the University of Amsterdam (UvA),the VU University Amsterdam (VU), the Hogeschool van Amsterdam (HvA) and HogeschoolINHolland. Together these four HEIs have a student population of over 100,000 and they employ70