Margot Weijnen rejoins NWO as Applied and Technical Science chief

As of 1 March, Margot Weijnen is a member of the executive board of NWO again, as well as chairperson of the Applied and Technical Science domain (TTW). She’s returning after an earlier installment from 2005 to 2013. Chemical engineer Weijnen is an energy infrastructure expert and holds a position as a professor of process and energy systems engineering at Delft University of Technology, next to being the scientific director of the knowledge platform Next Generation.

For Weijnen, NWO’s main appeal is the increased importance of collaboration between different domains. She states close collaboration between science and the private sector is necessary to fully implement the cabinet’s mission-driven innovation policy. Also, the government itself should invest more consistently in knowledge. “Politics here tends to be focused inward. We should feel countries like China and India breathing down our necks.”