NWO-I - umbrella organization for researchers

NWO-I’s full name is Foundation for Dutch Scientific Research Institutes. It is an independent foundation incorporated under private law (not a governmental organization). Because of its national interest, it is supervised by NWO (a governmental body). NWO-I is an umbrella organization for nine national research institutes: AMOLF, ARCNL, ASTRON, CWI, DIFFER, Nikhef, NIOZ, NSCR and SRON.

NWO-I is the employer of more than 1.700 employees from nine institutes, the NWO-I office and the Administrative Unit for Research Groups at Universities (BUW). The NWO Institutes have national and international roles. NWO Institutes are national expertise centres, breeding grounds for scientific innovation and talent, a nexus in national and international research, and developers, or enablers of large infrastructure or datasets. 

Research at NWO Institutes is driven by curiosity and societal challenges. Scientific and societal questions that are of national strategic importance require research with long-term commitment and the consolidation of multidisciplinary expertise and facilities. By carrying out groundbreaking, honest and excellent research that is accessible and transferable, NWO Institutes realise solutions with scientific and societal impact

  • Relationship with NWO

    NWO (the Dutch Research Council) is an organization incorporated by public law and is part of the Dutch government. NWO's task is to promote research with scientific and societal impact. NWO-I is an independent foundation, and thus a separate legal entity, and not part of the government. NWO does however supervise NWO-I because of the importance of the scientific research that is carried out in it, and to monitor the integrity of NWO-I as a public benefit institution. To this end, board members of NWO have a seat in the board of NWO-I without receiving benefits for these supervisory tasks.

  • Organisation units of NWO-I

    The following organisation units are part of NWO-I:

    Nine NWO Institutes

    • AMOLF, Physics of functional complex matter
    • ARCNL, Advanced Research Center for Nanolithography
    • ASTRON, Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy
    • CWI, Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica
    • DIFFER, Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research
    • Nikhef, National Institute of subatomic physics
    • NIOZ, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research
    • NSCR, Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement
    • SRON, Netherlands Institute for Space Research
  • NWO-I office

    The NWO-I office in Utrecht supports the NWO Institutes and the BUW with policy and strategy, personnel and support, financial administration and communication. The NWO-I office connects the BUW and the nine NWO Institutes with the domain organisation of NWO.

  • University workgroups (BUW)

    About  48 university workgroups from the Administrative Unit University Research Groups (BUW) are part of NWO-I. Within these research groups, physics research takes place at the following Dutch universities and knowledge institutions, until the former FOM projects still running have all been completed.

  • Organogram

    On the NWO-I website you will find the organogram of NWO and NWO-I.  

  • History

    On 1 January 2017, the former FOM Foundation was transformed into NWO-I, the Institutes Organisation of NWO. The FOM office was split into three parts: one part (granting) went to NWO Domain Science, one part to the Operations Unit of NWO, and the part that supported the former FOM Institutes (AMOLF, ARCNL, DIFFER and Nikhef) and the university research groups (BUW) was transformed into the NWO-I office. The NWO Institutes ASTRON, CWI, NIOZ, NSCR and SRON were merged with this institutes organisation on 1 January 2018.

  • Personnel information and vacancies

    All personnel information and vacancies for the nine NWO Institutes, the NWO-I office and the university workgroups (BUW) can be found on the NWO-I website.  

  • Quality NWO institutes: Standard Evaluation Protocol (SEP)

    Every six years, a panel of independent international experts assesses the NWO institutes according to the Standard Evaluation Protocol (SEP). That is drawn up by NWO, KNAW and the Dutch universities and provides guidelines for evaluating research and research policy. The evaluations were realised on the basis of the self-evaluation report from the institute, a preparation by the evaluation committee and an on-site visit of several days. More information.

  • Portfolio evaluation of NWO and KNAW research institutes

    In a portfolio evaluation, an independent committee evaluates the role of the NWO and KNAW institutes in the national knowledge landscape. The key question is whether the institutes are well equipped for new scientific and societal challenges. In 2016, a baseline measurement was performed for this, which was followed by the evaluation of the institutes portfolio of NWO and KNAW in 2018. More information (Dutch only).

  • Permanent Committee on National Institutes

    In June 2020, NWO’s executive board and the board of KNAW set up the Permanent Committee on National Institutes (PCNI). With the establishment of the PCNI, KNAW and NWO are helping to follow up on the 2019 portfolio evaluation of the KNAW and NWO institutes. More information about the mission and composition of the PCNI can be found here.

For more information, please visit the NWO-I website.