Venlo, The Netherlands - Océ today expressed its pleasure at the grant of EUR 1.2 million towards the establishment of its Document Services Valley open innovation center. The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Province of Limburg have granted this subsidy as part of its support of a program known as Pieken in de Delta (or Peaks in the Delta). Within Document Services Valley, companies and educational institutions will work together on developing new document services.

Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Province of Limburg have granted EUR 1.2 million subsidy for Document Services Valley.

The launch of the Document Services Valley open innovation center results from Océ joining forces with the University of Maastricht and Exser, a Dutch institute for service innovation.

Document Services Valley is an answer to the demand for development of information and knowledge processes.

Within the open innovation center, companies, governments and institutions will work together on themes such as service security and working independently of time and place – otherwise known as the New World of Work.

The first start-up to emerge from Document Services Valley, called Fabaliz, has already been established.

"This subsidy will accelerate the growth of Document Services Valley," said Harry Loozen, Senior Vice President Corporate Public Affairs and Sustainability at Océ. "We are convinced that open innovation for document services will make a valuable contribution to the economic growth ambitions of the southeastern Netherlands. That is exactly the intention of the Pieken in de Delta program."

"Digitization has changed the role of paper," says Ron Notermans, Vice President Research and Development of Océ. "The management and dissemination of information have also changed. For every 10 euro spent on document management, only one is actually spent on printing."