Professor C.C.A.M. (Stan) Gielen will become chair of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) with effect from 1 January 2017. NWO is currently undergoing major changes. The governance and organisation will become more streamlined and coherent. This will put NWO in a better position to optimally realise its core tasks, funding of and innovation in Dutch scientific research and the management of eight national research institutes, both now and in the future. As of 1 September 2016 Stan Gielen will be involved as the future chair of the Executive Board in the further realisation of this organisational change.
Photo: NWO/Manon Bruininga
Until 1 September 2016, Stan Gielen (1952) is Professor of Biophysics and Dean of the Faculty of Science at Radboud University in Nijmegen. He is an internationally renowned researcher with a track record of multidisciplinary collaboration, from biology and computer science to cognitive sciences. He has supervised more than 60 PhD students, has wide-ranging management experience, and during his period as dean he has proven himself to be a person who actively seeks to make connections. For example, as co-founder of a spin-off company, Stan Gielen has demonstrated his ability to connect research with society.
New NWO: new organisation and new governance
With effect from 1 January 2017, the nine divisions that NWO currently consists of will be clustered into four domains, and the number of boards within NWO will be reduced. At the top of the organisation there will be a new Executive Board that will consist of the chair, a member for operations and finance and four scientific members who will also be the chairs of the domain boards. The Executive Board will be responsible for the integral strategy and programming of the domains and allocating the budget across the domains. The Executive Board will also determine the long-term basic budgets for the institutes. These changes will enable NWO to position itself more strategically, to increase its decisiveness and organisational capabilities, to deploy funds more flexibly, and to increasingly work with a single coherent programming.
About the appointment procedure
After an open recruitment procedure, an appointment committee nominated Stan Gielen for the appointment to the State Secretary for Education, Culture and Science, Sander Dekker. The joint works council of NWO, ZonMw, CWI, NIOZ and FOM issued a positive advice about the appointment. State Secretary Decker subsequently appointed professor C.C.A.M. Gielen as chair of NWO with effect from 1 January 2017.
Curriculum Vitae Stan Gielen
After obtaining his degree in experimental physics and his PhD in biophysics from Radboud University in Nijmegen, Stan Gielen worked at Utrecht University from 1980 to 1988 and during this time he spent periods in the United States at Northwestern University and the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1988 he was appointed Professor of Biophysics in the Faculty of Science at Radboud University and in 1995 this professorship was extended to include Radboudumc. He was and is active in a wide variety of committees and organisations, he was the initiator of the Foundation for Neural Networks and he is the co-founder of a spin-off company. At a national level his further experience ranges from director of the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour to chair of the board of Nikhef and chair of the supervisory board of the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA). In an international context Gielen has, amongst other things, been a member of the Executive Board of the European Neural Networks Society and the Life Science Working Group of the European Space Agency. In 2009 he was elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).
About NWO
The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research is one of the biggest science-funding bodies in the Netherlands and ensures quality and innovation in science. Each year NWO invests about 700 million euros in more than 5800 research projects at universities and knowledge institutions. These concern research driven by scientific curiosity as well as research into societal issues. Based on the advice of independent researchers from the Netherlands and abroad NWO selects the best research proposals. NWO encourages national and international collaboration, manages and funds eight national research institutes, invests in large-scale research facilities, and promotes the use of research results.
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