Exploratory Research Programmes: Incubator for promising innovations

1. Women’s Health: Muscle Matters
   This project aims to reduce the health gap between men and women by improving women’s muscle health, performance and work capacity.
2. Greenhouse Gas Recycling for Semicon
   Developing breakthrough technology to capture, recycle and reuse powerful greenhouse gases from the semiconductor industry.
3. Electrification in Mobility – Large‑scale Agent‑Based Simulation
   Creating a high‑speed simulation platform for smart and affordable planning of charging infrastructure and power grids in a fully electric mobility system.
4. System‑level Platform for Adversarial Robustness Testing and Analysis
   Developing a digital twin that identifies vulnerabilities in autonomous systems—such as self‑driving vehicles—to make them safer and more reliable.
5. Orchestrating Alternative Compute Platforms 
   Creating an intelligent middleware layer that automatically distributes computational tasks over advanced computing technologies, without requiring specialist IT knowledge.
6. Agile AI Anomaly Detection
   Developing AI methods capable of detecting anomalies in complex systems with minimal labelled data—for faster, cheaper and more accurate inspection, defence and medical screening.
7. Hybrid Power Plant Digital Twin for Resilient Health‑Aware Operation & Maintenance
   Building a digital twin of hybrid power plants to enable smarter planning of maintenance and operations, increasing efficiency and reliability.
8. Industrial Ethylene Electrosynthesis
   Converting CO₂ into ethylene using electrochemistry, helping the chemical industry become greener and less dependent on fossil feedstocks.
9. BioAlert – Innovative Early Warning System Through Biomarkers
   Developing a biomarker platform that can detect lung and liver diseases early, even before symptoms appear.
10. Future‑proof Smart Logistics
    Designing intelligent, shared planning tools to make logistics networks more sustainable, efficient and resilient.
11. Cyber‑secure Systems by Design
    Embedding cybersecurity into products from the earliest design stage to build robust and future‑proof cyber‑physical systems.
12. Smart Chemical Industry
    Developing a toolbox that enables chemical processes to adapt to fluctuating sustainable electricity, supporting a green transition in industry.
13. Highly Sensitive Optical Gas Sensing
    Developing extremely sensitive instruments for airborne detection of gases such as ammonia, enabling fair and accurate emissions monitoring.
14. Asphalt Rejuvenation Using Micro‑Algae
    Creating a bio‑based rejuvenator derived from micro‑algae to improve asphalt recycling and reduce environmental impact.
15. Atmospheric Models for Optical Solutions
    Improving atmospheric models to make optical communication systems, laser‑based technologies and Earth observation more reliable.
16. Empowering Citizen Collectives
    Developing methods and tools to strengthen citizen initiatives and improve collaboration between residents, government and industry.
17. Polymer Design by Machine Learning
    Building an AI engine to accelerate the design of safe, circular and climate‑friendly polymers.
18. Sustainable ICT
    Providing insight into the environmental impact of digital technologies, supporting policymakers and ICT companies in reducing emissions.
19. Appl.AI
    Developing reliable and explainable AI for autonomous systems and decision‑making.
20. Next‑Generation Crypto
    Advancing privacy‑preserving and quantum‑safe cryptography for secure, real‑time sharing and analysis of sensitive data.
21. Plasma Synthesis
    Developing plasma technology to convert methane into valuable chemicals such as ethylene using electricity.
22. Socio‑economic Impact of Green Transitions
    Building simulation models that show how the energy and mobility transitions impact different households, enabling fairer policy decisions.
23. Solar‑to‑Hydrogen
    Designing and testing devices that convert water into green hydrogen directly using sunlight.
24. Sustainable Recycling of Batteries and Solar Panels
    Creating new recycling technologies to preserve valuable materials in a circular system and reduce import dependency.
25. Synthetic Biochemistry
    Building highly efficient biochemical production lines for medicines and bio‑based materials, enabling faster and cleaner manufacturing.

This figure illustrates how the projects within TNO’s Exploratory Research Programmes are connected to the six key technology domains of the National Technology Strategy.

In the left‑hand column, the technology domains are listed: energy materials; optical systems and integrated photonics; artificial intelligence, data and cybersecurity; process technology; biomolecular and cell technologies; and semiconductor technologies.

To the right of each domain is a row of ERP projects associated with it, such as sustainable recycling of batteries, atmospheric optical detection models, AI security, synthetic biochemistry, biomarker diagnostics and greenhouse‑gas recycling. At the bottom is an additional category of supporting methodologies, with projects focusing on socio‑economic impacts and citizen collectives.

Each project name has a coloured dot indicating which TNO unit is responsible for it.