Evaluation NWO completed
Press release by NWO
The international committee appointed by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science to evaluate NWO, which FOM is part of, presented its report on 21 May 2013 to State Secretary for Education, Culture and Science Sander Dekker.
The committee concludes "that the primary mission of NWO - the selection of excellent researchers and research proposals - is realised superbly and is undisputed". The evaluation report also contains several recommendations and suggests changes in the governance so that NWO can continue to function well in the future.
Several recommendations from the committee concerned the position NWO has adopted in the past two years in the changing science and innovation policy. The collaboration between NWO and its Dutch partners has been strengthened in recent years. Examples of this are the joint manifesto published in September 2012 by the knowledge organisations and the confederated industry, and the subsequent commitment of the Dutch cabinet that the extra investments in fundamental research would largely be deployed via NWO. In particular, NWO makes a leading contribution to the scientific agendas for the top sectors. In doing this NWO continues to pay full attention to its science-wide mission.
The evaluation committee addresses the importance of collaboration and links between organisations in Dutch and international science policy and it recognises the role of NWO in European research collaboration. NWO will use the analysis and recommendations of the evaluation committee for the points stated when drawing up the new NWO strategy for the period 2015 - 2018. Preparations for that have started this spring and there is a clear emphasis on the input from the various stakeholders of NWO. The strategy memorandum is due to be published in the summer of 2014.
Finally the evaluation committee emphasised the urgency of changes in the organisation and governance of NWO, based in part on signals from the stakeholders. The Governing Board of NWO completely concurs with the committee's opinion that NWO will benefit in the future from changes to the organisation with a view, for example, to encouraging interdisciplinary research collaboration and alignment with university agendas. With this in mind, the Board made a start on developing ideas for possible changes in 2012.
For more information and the report of the evaluation committee, please see the website of NWO.
Source: NWO