How Wageningen redefines impact: From patent to purpose

For this episode, we spoke with Sebastiaan Berendsen, Director of Value Creation and Impact at Wageningen University & Research, about how universities can move beyond traditional measures like patents and spinouts to focus on real societal outcomes.

Drawing on his contribution to the Future of Universities Thoughtbook | Entrepreneurial Edition, we explored what it takes to build mission-driven partnerships, how co-creation with stakeholders shapes research and innovation, and why long-term, trust-based collaboration is key to creating impact that truly moves the needle in society.

You can read a summary below, and listen to the full interview in our podcast:

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Summary

The language of university impact has long been dominated by what can be counted: patents filed, licenses signed, spinouts launched. However, as food systems, climate pressures and biodiversity loss intensify, that ledger feels too narrow. For Sebastiaan Berendsen, Director of Value Creation and Impact at Wageningen University & Research, the deeper test of a university is whether its knowledge changes how people farm, govern, collaborate and live.

The challenges in front of them are systemic, long-term, and impossible to solve alone. Sebastiaan’s perspective points to a broader model of impact, one built through education, mission-driven partnerships, and outcomes that are felt in practice and not just counted on paper.

Impact beyond patents

Patents, licenses and spinouts still matter. They are visible, tangible and often useful ways to track how knowledge moves into the world, but Sebastiaan argues that they represent only one part of the picture.

A university’s impact also travels through its people. Students and graduates take the latest knowledge into companies, governments, NGOs and communities, where it shapes decisions and practice in ways that are harder to measure, but no less important. For Sebastiaan, that wider view of impact is essential if universities want to understand their real contribution to society.

We try to shift the thinking beyond just measurable output things, but also towards outcomes and actual experienced impact of daily practice.

Starting with society’s questions

At Wageningen, that broader view is supported by the institution’s close connection between academic research and applied research. It creates a bridge between long-term scientific inquiry and the immediate needs of sectors, regions and policymakers.

Research questions often begin outside the university. Farmers, ministries, companies, and other stakeholders bring forward problems they need solved. In this model, the university is not simply generating knowledge in isolation, but is helping turn shared challenges into structured, evidence-based action.

Mission-driven programmes, not one-off projects

Once a challenge is clearly defined, partnership becomes part of the design. Sebastiaan describes a way of working in which stakeholders are involved from the outset, shaping programmes around shared missions rather than being brought in only at the point of implementation.

That approach is increasingly reflected in national and European funding models, where consortia are expected to combine different kinds of expertise and responsibility.

A long-term programme on regenerative farming in the Netherlands, for example, was built around improving soil health, supporting farmer livelihoods and staying within planetary boundaries. The ambition was not just to test a solution, but to help drive system-level change.

You already need partners, so you start to reach out towards stakeholders that might be, or want to be, part of such a project.

Managing partnerships wisely

For Sebastiaan, long-term collaboration only works when partnership itself is treated as serious work. Universities must understand what motivates each partner, where ownership should sit, and what the institution cannot do alone.

Reciprocity, respect and ethics become practical requirements rather than abstract principles. Wise partnership management is not an add-on to impact, it is one of the main conditions that makes impact possible.

Trust is a big factor of how these programmes actually work.

Measuring the ripple effect

An example Sebastiaan points to is a long-running programme in Eastern Africa that worked with local universities, NGOs, and communities to improve farming practices for smallholder farmers. Its reach extended to over 500.000 farmers, but its significance went beyond scale, showing that local knowledge, language and cultural understanding are essential to making research usable and durable in practice.

It also revealed how impact creates ripple effects. Students and researchers involved in the work carried that experience into future roles in policy, cooperatives, and applied research. The programme also raised new questions about how to measure whether livelihoods had improved and whether long-term change had taken hold. Sebastiaan argues that universities need to return to these questions after projects end, using storytelling, partner feedback, and follow-up assessment to understand what changed.

We’re not here just to make projects, but in the end to make real societal impact.

In Sebastiaan Berendsen’s view, impact is not a transaction at the end of research, but a long-term relationship between knowledge and society. As expectations on universities continue to rise, the institutions that lead will be the ones that can build trust, share ownership, and show how research changes life on the ground.

Ready for more?

If Sebastiaan Berendsen’s reflections on the future of universities sparked your curiosity, you can explore his ideas in more depth in the Future of Universities Thoughtbook | Entrepreneurial Edition. In the book, Sebastiaan joins 34 other global experts from academia, industry, and policy who share their perspectives on how universities must evolve to foster entrepreneurship, innovation, and real-world impact.

UIIN members have full access to the complete Thoughtbook here, while non-members can download a preview here to discover some of the insights and ideas shaping the entrepreneurial university of the future.

Stay tuned for the next episode on this series and don’t forget to follow us on your preferred podcast platform!