History

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Initial ideas for “strengthening the knowledge infrastructure in the field of sensors and intelligent sensor systems” date back to the Sensor Universe covenant. This covenant was reached on November 22, 2006 between the Municipality of Assen, the Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy, the province of Drenthe, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Hanze University Groningen, the Integrated Development Lab and the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO).

The Sensor Universe Institute was founded on the basis of this covenant, with an accompanying ‘Vision and Work Program’. Achieving an “excellent supporting infrastructure for high-quality sensor technology” is one of the focal points within the ‘Vision and Work Program’, which can be described in more detail as “effective construction and expansion facilities in the field of basic and applied research”.

In June 2008, this resulted in a discussion between the future founders and managing directors of INCAS³: Heinrich Wörtche and John van Pol. The Managing Director of Sensor Universe, Henk Koopmans, remained in contact with both gentlemen individually and foresaw an impressive team to achieve the research objective.Brainstorming about INCAS³

In the months that followed, Van Pol and Wörtche (see photo) worked around the clock on a business plan for what is now known as INCAS³. This plan was presented to the managerial platform of Sensor Universe on December 10, 2008 with the conclusion being that approval was granted for the outline of the business plan and a request was made to further advance the plan.

The province of Drenthe, which was also represented on the managerial platform, held so strongly to the plan that was presented to it that it pledged an incidental performance-based grant of €600,000 to allow the plan to be advanced, but also in anticipation of the implementation of the INCAS³ concept. With the establishment of the INCAS³ Institute on December 19, 2008 by Heinrich Wörtche, John van Pol and Henk Koopmans on behalf of Sensor Universe, the new scientific sensor research institute became a reality.

2009 was marked by two parallel projects. On the one hand, the new institute was working towards activating the first research lines and acquiring the first researchers. On the other hand, a major application for grants was being prepared to secure financing to launch INCAS³. At the end of December 2009, everything was complete. INCAS³ had received its financing and was able to rapidly expand the institute, which at that point was being operated by 10 people with 16 million euros in funding.