IX Labs

The Creative Industries Immersive Impact Coalition (CIIIC) will strengthen the Dutch immersive experiences (IX) sector in the coming years with various programs, grants, and open calls. An important part of this is the development of a national network of regional IX Labs, which will make state-of-the-art facilities and expertise accessible to creators, companies, knowledge institutions, and governments.

As part of Action Line 3: Ecosystem and Facilities of the CIIIC program, an open call has been published, with TNO acting as the executing organization. This call will select five regional IX Labs of significant size. These labs will strengthen the infrastructure for research, development, and experimentation in the field of immersive experiences, and promote collaboration and knowledge exchange within the regions.

Objectives

The main objectives of the program are:

• Create a sustainable national infrastructure for the development of immersive experiences
• Provide easy access to state-of-the-art facilities for creators, companies, knowledge institutions, and governments
• Promote collaboration and knowledge transfer between regions
• Create unique world-class facilities that complement rather than duplicate each other.

Call Opened

In collaboration with TNO, the CIIIC call was opened on October 15, 2025, to realize a national infrastructure of IX Labs. Parties can apply as an IX Lab with the appropriate evidence and will be admitted to the dialogue phase – in which coordination with TNO and other participants can occur. The dialogue phase is intended to develop the substantive proposal for the IX Lab into a full-fledged proposal that functions within a national infrastructure. Based on the substantive proposals, TNO will select up to five IX Labs to form a consortium with.

Grant indication per IX Lab: a maximum of €2,880,000 for the entire duration of the CIIIC program up to 2029:

• In Phase 1, this involves a maximum grant contribution of €2,115,000,
• In Phase 2, this involves a maximum grant contribution of €765,000.

Participants must ensure their own contribution to the costs; the maximum subsidy percentage is 47.4%.

Important Deadlines

Download the updated Call for Applications (PDF) (version: November 17, 2025) for all important information about the process.

1: Application 

• Application deadline: November 26, 2025
• Each intended participant must only submit the Participant Application Document via this application form
• No other documents need to be filled in yet
• The dialogue phase then starts from early December 2025

In this phase, the consortia are not yet final; for this reason, separate parties register to participate in the dialogue phase. In the dialogue phase (December 2025 - February 2026), the composition of consortia can still change.

2: Optional: Comment on Cooperation Agreement

• Any comments on the Draft Cooperation Agreement should be submitted by early January at the latest. This is not mandatory.
• Download the drafted Draft Cooperation Agreement
• Download the Comment Table (for making change suggestions for the cooperation agreement)

3: Proposal Submission

• Deadline: February 6, 2026
• Application for this call can be made by filling out the form on the same page that will then contain an adjusted form.

At that time, two documents must be uploaded

• The Proposal Document (the document that must be submitted once for all participants of a consortium jointly)
• And the CIIIC AL3.1 Budget and Business Plan.xlsx (model budget and business plan – corrected version uploaded on November 17, 2025) 

Previous Information

• The full pre-announcement of the call, including objectives, participation criteria, financial frameworks, and next steps, can be downloaded here: Download the pre-announcement (PDF)

Change 17-11-2025

As of today, a change has been made to the conditions of this call: based on feedback from the IX community, in consultation between CIIIC, TNO, and the Ministry of OCW, it was decided to remove the condition that 50% of the own contribution must come from private funds. Download the updated Call for Applications (PDF). 

The Excel file with the budget and business plan has also been updated; the revised version is available for download here.

Update 19-11-205

On November 12, a meeting took place with various parties interested in participating in this call. Read the full report or download the pdf.

Questions and Answers

• Visit the page with Questions and Answers for various documents with questions and answers published during the past period.
• If you have questions about this procedure, there is a special contact form for IX Labs.