The Department of Plant Systems Biology, and the VIB as a whole, have a long standing tradition of converting basic science into successful industrial entities: Plant Genetic Systems (now Bayer Cropscience), CropDesign (now BASF Plant Science), Devgen and more recently SoluCel.

Today, these companies together with our department form the largest European Plant Biotechnology campus, employing approximately 670 persons dedicated to plant biotechnology. The bulk of this workforce has been established because of the department's outstanding scientific achievements and its remarkable ability to identify opportunities for building on scientific results for the exploration of industrial applications. The Department has ongoing collaborations with each of these companies on campus.