The government, employee and employer organisations want as many people as possible to reach retirement age in good health. This is important because there are increasing shortages of personnel in essential physical professions such as construction and nursing. Minister Mariëlle Paul of Social Affairs and Employment (SZW) therefore announced today at FRAIM on the TU Delft Campus that the government, together with employers and employee organisations, will invest approximately €200 million until 2030 in projects and innovations that contribute to the sustainable employability of workers in physical professions. TU Delft will play an important role in this through FRAIM.
The minister made her announcement at FRAIM, the partnership that focuses on shaping the future of physical work, with and for professionals.
The founding partners of FRAIM are TU Delft, Radboud University, TU Eindhoven, University of Twente, and fieldlab RoboHouse.
Hester Bijl, rector magnificus of TU Delft, emphasises that unlocking knowledge for the benefit of society is a core task of the university. ‘By jointly developing new technologies for attractive and productive physical work, we are contributing to a sustainable approach to a major economic and social issue.’
FRAIM has a unique transdisciplinary approach: integrating academic perspectives (technical, design-oriented, social) into an innovation process. Scientists collaborate with professionals to investigate which innovations are desirable and feasible for attractive work, and what role emerging technologies, such as robotics, can play in this. Professor David Abbink of Delft University of Technology, director of FRAIM, won the NWO Stevin Prize (also known as the “Dutch Nobel Prize”) in 2024 for this approach.
That is why FRAIM argues that technology should not only be developed by engineers, but also in co-creation with professionals and other scientists. This approach is already being applied to nursing work at Erasmus MC, and to SMEs in the metal and construction sectors through a policy experiment with the Ministry of Economic Affairs (EZ), TNO, Koninklijke Metaalunie and Bouwend Nederland.
The Sustainable Employability Agenda of SZW is investing a substantial budget in a five-year alliance between FRAIM, TNO, EZ and SZW to learn, together with social partners, how to innovate towards sustainable employability. The aim is to find solutions that can be scaled up nationally through a knowledge and innovation centre and regional ecosystems.
