Accompanied by a high-ranking business delegation, the King and Queen had a busy itinerary comprising visits to Eisenach and Erfurt and an impressive business event in Jena. At the Beutenberg-Campus – Thuringia’s scientific ‘hot spot’ – some 50 Dutch business people met more than 80 of their Thuringian counterparts at a ‘Pitch & Match’ session, and more than 100 conversations took place at the cooperation exchange held afterwards. The expertise of the two countries combined to create an integrated exhibition. The universities of Jena and Delft signed a memorandum of understanding for a joint course of studies. The following day, the members of the Dutch delegation took a closer look at Thuringia’s thriving industries: divided into interest-specific groups, they visited global players including Carl Zeiss Jena, Jena-Optronik, X-Fab Semiconductor Foundries and the CiS Research Center for Micro Sensors. They were all very interested in Thuringia, and the ‘Meet the Dutch’ week certainly laid the foundation for future cooperation.
