NWO-I, Institutes Organisation of NWO
NWO-I›About NWO-I
This image shows the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescopes

NWO-I’s full name is Foundation for Dutch Scientific Research Institutes. It is an independent foundation incorporated under private law (not a governmental organization). Because of its national interest, it is supervised by NWO, the Dutch Research Council (a governmental body). NWO-I is an umbrella organization for nine national research institutes: AMOLF, ARCNL, ASTRON, CWI, DIFFER, Nikhef, NIOZ, NSCR and SRON.

NWO-I is the employer of more than 1.750 employees from nine institutes and the NWO-I Office.

The NWO institutes have national and international roles. NWO institutes are national expertise centres, breeding grounds for scientific innovation and talent, a nexus in national and international research, and developers, or facilitators of large infrastructure or datasets. 
Research at NWO institutes is driven by curiosity and societal challenges. Scientific and societal questions that are of national strategic importance require research with long-term commitment and the consolidation of multidisciplinary expertise and facilities. By carrying out groundbreaking, honest and excellent research that is accessible and transferable, NWO institutes realise solutions with scientific and societal impact.

Relationship with NWO

NWO is an organization incorporated by public law and is part of the Dutch government. NWO's task is to promote research with scientific and societal impact. NWO-I is an independent foundation, and thus a separate legal entity, and not part of the government. NWO does however supervise NWO-I because of the importance of the scientific research that is carried out in it, and to monitor the integrity of NWO-I as a public benefit institution. To this end, board members of NWO have a seat in the board of NWO-I without receiving benefits for these supervisory tasks.

Organisation units of NWO-I

The following organisation units are part of NWO-I.

Nine NWO institutes

  • AMOLF - Physics of functional complex matter
  • ARCNL - Advanced Research Center for Nanolithography
  • ASTRON - Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy
  • CWI - Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica
  • DIFFER - Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research
  • Nikhef - National Institute of subatomic physics
  • NIOZ - Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research
  • NSCR - Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement
  • SRON - Netherlands Institute for Space Research

NWO-I Office
The NWO-I Office in Utrecht supports the NWO Institutes with policy and strategy, personnel and support, financial administration and communication. The NWO-I Office connects the nine NWO Institutes with the domain organisation of NWO.

Organogram

Below you will find the organogram of NWO and NWO-I. 

History

On 1 January 2017, the former FOM Foundation was transformed into NWO-I, the Institutes Organisation of NWO. Together with the other NWO units, FOM was transformed into a new organisation. The FOM office was split into three parts: one part (granting) went to NWO Domain Science, one part to the Operations Unit of NWO, and the part that supported the former FOM Institutes (AMOLF, ARCNL, DIFFER and Nikhef) and the former university research groups (BUW) was transformed into the NWO-I office. The NWO Institutes ASTRON, CWI, NIOZ, NSCR and SRON were merged with this institutes organisation on 1 January 2018.

Confidental Infomation