Agreement about MaGW's new strategy and new subsidies

At the end of March, the board and directors of the Division for Social Sciences held a fruitful consultation about MaGW’s new strategy with a delegation of deans and administrators from university faculties. The main points of the strategy for 2011 to 2014 have now been agreed upon.

The most important focus area is thematic collaboration. For the next few years, MaGW shall focus on research programmes that cross disciplines and divisions. These programmes shall address socially relevant problems from both societal and private parties. They will be cofunded by external parties and shall relate to the general themes established by NWO for the forthcoming period. One of the thematic research programmes is ‘Connecting Sustainable Cities’ that will tackle issues in areas such as transport and mobility within and between growing cities.

The second focus area in the new strategy is providing subsidies for fundamental research. This will take place in open competition. The aim is to provide subsidies for researchers in different phases of their career. Moreover, MaGW wants to guarantee a high quality of assessment by reducing the application pressure in the open competition wherever possible. The limited resources available must reach the best research and the best researchers.

In order to realise these objectives, MaGW will adopt a different approach to the Open Competition from 2011 onwards. In that year there will be a subsidy for 45 talented young researchers who have completed a research masters or a comparable course. Professors will submit these applications for PhD positions. The subsidy will be for a period of 3 years.

In addition to this, MaGW shall introduce the TOP subsidy. Established research groups will be able to apply for this subsidy of € 600,000 to € 750,000 for a cluster of projects.
In the new strategy memorandum, MaGW also states that the division shall do more in the coming years to ensure that scientific research output reaches users. To this end, researchers and users or social partners shall meet for consultation before the start of the research programmes. During the assessment of the applications and the interim evaluation of the research, greater emphasis will be placed on the societal relevance of the research.

Overview of Free Competition subsidies

For further information

• Renée van Kessel-Hagesteijn (director MaGW)
  t.: +31 (0)70 344 09 90, e-mail: r.vankessel@nwo.nl
• Paul Berendsen (deputy director MaGW)
  t.: +31 (0)70 344 09 05, e-mail: p.berendsen@nwo.nl