KeyGene in the Netherlands’ 2025 R&D Top 50

Innovation ecosystem

The R&D Top 50 is based on the R&D volume carried out in the Netherlands by companies having their headquarters in the Netherlands and abroad. The parameters included in the list are, amongst others, the R&D spending in the Netherlands and worldwide and the number of employees specifically working in R&D in the Netherlands and worldwide.

KeyGene in Top50

KeyGene’s research on technology innovation in the Netherlands is conducted in fields like DNA & RNA technologies, Data Science including AI, Cell & Tissue technologies, and the Induction of desired genetic variation.
This research is largely funded by four international vegetable crop breeding companies, which are the shareholders of KeyGene. Two of these are mentioned in the 2025 R&D Top 50 too: Rijk Zwaan is ranked 12, Enza Zaden is ranked 24.

A well-known recent example of KeyGene technology innovation for crop improvement is the skin-transplantation technology, also known as 2S1 (two-as-one), which yielded its first variety to receive plant breeders’ rights this year.
Thanks to this skin transplant technology, plants with important ‘internal’ traits, such as yield and fruit size, can be combined with important skin-linked traits such as resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses by carrying out a specific grafting protocol.

Another example of KeyGene’s technology innovation is the discovery of two genes crucial to apomixis, a process that enables plants to develop seeds without pollination.
Thanks to this process, all plants in the new generation have the same genetic make-up as the mother plant, a phenomenon that may innovate plant breeding in many crops.