Michiel van den Hout will become head of Strategic Support NWO-I with effect from 1 April 2017

Who is Michiel van den Hout?
Michiel van den Hout (1976) was trained as a physicist. He started his studies at Utrecht University and graduated from Delft University of Technology. He subsequently became a trainee and then an account/project manager at ASM in Bilthoven (now Almere). After two years, he became the youngest project leader of the ASM Development department. Van den Hout: "I had the task to redesign the development process for machines and get colleagues who had already worked there for thirty years on board. Speaking about challenges! I learned a lot." Two years later, he found he missed the challenge of fundamental physics and therefore gladly accepted the offer of Cees Dekker (Delft University of Technology) to do a PhD. After his PhD graduation, he made a seven-month road trip by car through Africa and then accepted the next job as project manager at Stork. Three years later, a vacancy at FOM appeared for a programme coordinator in the office of the Industrial Partnership Programmes. Van den Hout thought it was a 'fantastic job' because the work was positioned between academic research and industry. The transition to NWO offered the opportunity for this next career step. Van den Hout: "My current new challenge lies in leading a new department and in the sheer scope of the job. You need to be able to oversee everything. It is fantastic to be able to put flesh on the bones of policies."

Liaising role
"Within Strategic Support, we act as liaisons with the institutes for all policy files." explains Van den Hout. "I will lead a team of about ten employees. Part of those come from FOM and the other colleagues from the Policy Support Department of NWO. We will have a serving role towards the institutes. We need to gain the trust of the institutes. How will we do that? By ensuring that we act as good spokespersons within NWO, but also outside of NWO of course. This means that we need to be optimally embedded within the NWO organisation and have to be able to get a good grasp of what is going on. For example, we need to know it when people are considering setting up a new programme on Big Data and ensure that institutes such as CWI and Nikhef are involved. Another example is the upcoming evaluation of the institutes that will be carried out by an external committee. The institutes" strategy for the future is an important aspect of this." Van den Hout thinks that his department will play an important role in the evaluation process: "We proactively deliberate on the strategy with the institutes, provide advice and try to position the institutes as well as possible. As a semi-independent observer, we also assume the role of internal secretary."

The new NWO-I
NWO-I is currently in the process of merging other institutes (NSCR, NIOZ, ASTRON, CWI and SRON) into the organisation, a major operation with many legal and financial components. Van den Hout is pleased with his position at NWO-I, which he considers to be an attractive organisation: "As institutes, we have a separate position, yet we are also part of the larger NWO. The people in my department need to be fully aware of what is going on in NWO and which consequences new policies can have. We can also advise policy makers in The Hague about what they need to pay attention to and tell them whether proposals or ideas are realistic. Actively helping to shape policy is even better, precisely because we can add the practical knowledge about how the proposed policy will work out within the institutes. There is a lot to be gained by all parties involved."

What will make you satisfied two years from now?
Van den Hout hopes that the directors of the institutes, and others within NWO, will know to find his department as a sounding board and as valued advisers. Van den Hout: "And that the directors are convinced that their institutes have a stronger position within NWO. I also hope that we have been able to convince NWO internally, but also the outside world in particular, that we have fantastic institutes." (AvS) 

Transition NWO
For more information about the NWO transition, please visit the website of the NWO-I (Institutes Organisation of NWO) and the NWO website.