Themes and talent for the future

23 June 2010

Launch of NWO strategy 2011-2014 

More opportunities for scientific talent and a greater role for scientific research in society. These are two important priorities in the new strategy of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). NWO will therefore invest in talent and societally-inspired themes and it will place greater emphasis on knowledge utilisation.

NWO chair Jos Engelen: 'In its new strategy, NWO wants to structurally invest on an even greater scale in world-class scientists and excellent research. In talented people who right now, in times of scarcity, must be given the space to investigate their innovative ideas.'

Talent for the future

The Netherlands is brimming with talent, as evidenced by the rising application pressure and the quality of the proposals submitted for the Innovational Research Incentives Scheme and the Open Competition. At present, NWO can only award one in five applications. NWO is therefore calling for an additional budget of 500 million euro which it can use, for example, to structurally fund more than 2000 researchers. This will directly contribute to a stronger research capacity, more high-level jobs and new knowledge that our society will benefit from both now and in the future.

Themes for the future

NWO's new themes will give an extra impulse to solving urgent societal challenges. By means of curiosity-driven and societally-inspired research, researchers will work on the knowledge that our society needs. Science and society are therefore inextricably linked, a fact that NWO has portrayed in its strategy memorandum using the Möbius strip. 

The six new themes are: Healthy living, Water and climate, Cultural encounters: challenges of complex societies, Sustainable energy, Connecting sustainable cities, and Materials: solutions for scarcity. With these themes NWO will also make a clear contribution to the national and international research agendas. 

About NWO

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) is the principal Dutch science funding body and its mission is to facilitate excellent scientific research in the Netherlands by means of national competition. Each year NWO spends more than 700 million euro on grants for top researchers, on innovative instruments and equipment, and on institutes where top research is performed. NWO funds the research of more than 5300 talented researchers at universities and institutes. Independent experts select proposals by means of a peer review system. NWO facilitates the transfer of knowledge to society.

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last modified on 27 July 2010