Samenvatting

Like a marker pen on a map, the Covid-19 pandemic drastically highlighted the
persisting existence of borders that used to play an ever decreasing role in people´s
perception and behavior over the last decades. Yes, inner European borders are
open in normal times. Yes, people, goods, services and ideas are crossing the border
between Germany and the Netherlands freely. Yet we see that the border can turn
into a barrier again quickly and effectively and it does so in many dimensions, some
of them being not easily visible.
Barriers hinder growth, development and exchange and in spite of our progress in
creating a borderless Europe, borders still create barriers in many domains. Differing labor law, social security and tax systems, heterogeneous education models, small and big cultural differences, language barriers and more can impose severe limitations on people and businesses as they cross the border to travel, shop, work, hire, produce, buy, sell, study and research.
Borders are of all times and will therefore always exist. But as they did so for a long
time, huge opportunities can be found in overcoming the barriers they create. The
border must not necessarily be a dividing line between two systems. It has the
potential to become a center of growth and progress that build on joint efforts,
cross-border cooperation, mutual learning and healthy competition. Developing
this inherent potential of border regions asks for politics, businesses and research
& education on both sides of the border to work together.
The research group Cross-Border Business Development at Fontys University of
Applied Science in Venlo conducts applied research on the impact of the national
border on people and businesses in the Dutch-German border area. Students,
employees, border commuters, entrepreneurs and employers all face opportunities
as well as challenges due to the border. In collaboration with these stakeholders, the
research chair aims to create knowledge and provide solutions towards a Dutch-German labor market, an innovative Dutch-German borderland and a futureproof
Cross-Border economic ecosystem.
This collection is not about the borderland in times of COVID-19. Giving meaning
to the borderland is an ongoing process that started long before the pandemic and
will continue far beyond. The links that have been established across the border and
those that will in the future are multifaceted and so are the topics in this collection.
Vincent Pijnenburg outlines a broader and introductory perspective on the dynamics in the Dutch-German borderland.. Carla Arts observes shopping behavior of cross-border consumers in the Euregion Rhine-Meuse-North. Jan Lucas explores
the interdependencies of the Dutch and German economies. Jean Louis Steevensz
presents a cross-border co-creation servitization project between a Dutch supplier
and a German customer. Vincent Pijnenburg and Patrick Szillat analyze the exitence of clusters in the Dutch-German borderland. Christina Masch and Janina
Ulrich provide research on students job search preferences with a focus on the
cross-border labor market. Sonja Floto-Stammen and Natalia Naranjo-Guevara
contribute a study of the market for insect-based food in Germany and the Netherlands. Niklas Meisel investigates the differences in the German and Dutch response to the Covid-19 crisis. Finally, Tolga Yildiz and Patrick Szillat show differences in product-orientation and customer-orientation between Dutch and German small and medium sized companies.
This collection shows how rich and different the links across the border are and
how manifold the perspectives and fields for a cross-border approach to regional
development can be. This publication is as well an invitation. Grasping the opportunities that the border location entails requires cooperation across professional fields and scientific disciplines, between politics, business and researchers. It needs the contact with and the contribution of the people in the region. So do what we strive for with our cross-border research agenda: connect!