The market for pregnancy and baby products and services covers many hundreds of billions of euros each year. From care products, baby and infant nutrition, diapers, medicine/kits, clothing, toys to interactive games, devices and wearables. And for products with a positive contribution to the development and health of the child: business; big business. The importance for the Northern economy in this respect is the number and total size of the number and size of the number of companies that focus on the production of baby and infant nutrition and diapers, but also the intensity with which lifescience companies are working on biomarkers for health. Furthermore, the North, in particular around the cities of Leeuwarden and the city of Groningen, houses a large number of IT companies that make all kinds of Serious Games. Finally, a portfolio of (connected) devices and wearables develops in so-called medtech companies. This project concerns the creation, realisation and operation of a new laboratory for industry called: Test yard Newborn. The project is an initiative of: UMCG, Lifelines, Philips Consumer lyfestyle and a cooperative of around 20 northern SMEs, namely the Healthy Ageing Business Cooperatief U.A. The Newborn test garden is created around a new and special birth cohort (Lifelines NEXT) in which 1,500 (pregnant) women, their men and their babies are followed intensively up to 1,000 days after birth. A cohort research as such is completely unsuitable as a testing ground for companies to test products and innovations. After all, a cohort collects basic data that are the starting point for scientific and explanatory research. It is neither an environment nor infrastructure that can be used for companies to do valorisation work.The test garden infrastructure that is realised in this project includes a secure I(C)T infrastructure for the exchange of data that guarantees privacy and anonymity, some 4,900 connected devices for continuous measurement, qualified peopleing both towards companies and towards participants and interested participants. This allows (SME) companies and other interested parties to validate their own developed (product) innovations;•connected (eHealth) devices and associated web-based or mobile services that give participants insight into their health and (living) patterns;•within the applicable medical-ethical boundaries and guarantees for participant privacy and data protection, conduct research on anonymised datasets and samples for doing their own innovation. In this context, UMCG and Lifelines will invest additionally compared to the cohort work, in order to make the testing ground possible. The new testing ground meets a need for companies (large and small) to test innovations in an easily accessible infrastructure and to have access to a representative group of young parents and their babies with the help of scientists. Also for larger companies, setting up and maintaining a comparable, own test garden is not an option. During the project period, the plan is to bring 28 valorisation pathways of companies into the laboratory. Discussions are already ongoing with a number of parties about the actual use.The test ground is particularly original and innovative. A birth cohort of this magnitude and depth is unique worldwide. Attention is also paid to the development of the so-called microbiome whose impact on health and well-being is becoming increasingly apparent but of which very little is known in the first 3 years of a child’s life. A third element of innovation is the equipment of the test ground with 4,900 so-called connected devices that allow for continuous measurement at a distance. As far as is known, this information/this equipment of the testing ground is to be mentioned. This project provides the basis for a permanent testing ground for companies around the entire Lifelines cohort of 165,000 participants, including the 1,500 children of LifeLines NEXT. The business case shows that a permanent test ground can be realised by a contribution now for the Newborn test garden.