Inside NWO-I October 2019

First pile sunk

Construction SRON building in Leiden started

SRON director Michael Wise, institute manager Annemieke Beers and executives from NWO, the universities of Delft and Leiden, Leiden Municipality and the Province of South Holland sunk the first pile of the new SRON building in South Holland on 18 October 2019. From mid-2021 onwards, the main location of SRON will be on the Bio Science campus, next to the beta building of Leiden University.

Royal visit for ASTRON

On 18 September 2019, King Willem Alexander and Queen Máxima visited the NWO institute ASTRON and the Dwingeloo telescope as part of their “regional visit” to the province of Drenthe. It was a superb opportunity to present ASTRON as one of the jewels of the municipality to the royal couple.

Privacy officer NWO-I: 'If it’s not necessary, it’s forbidden’

At NSCR, their worst nightmare would be personal details, such as those of victims, ending up on the street. With Aad van der Klaauw, NSCR has a prudent data protection officer in the team. Van der Klaauw has also just started guiding the NWO-I institutes in his role as privacy officer. ‘You must set up systems in such a way that the lot doesn't collapse if an employee forgets his password after his holiday.’

Connect@ARCNL

Science at the nanometre scale

In late September, 30 colleagues took part in Connect@ARCNL. ARCNL had put together an excellent programme. For example, the NWO-I colleagues enthusiastically jumped up and down to test whether the vibration-free floor really was vibration-free. And they could have a photo taken with the heat camera to see which part of the face was the warmest and which the coldest.

Highlight AMOLF

Alphabet of 140 puzzle-pieces programs origami

How can a single origami crease pattern be folded into two precisely defined target shapes? Researchers at NWO institute AMOLF and at Leiden University have created an ‘alphabet’ of 140 origami ‘puzzle-pieces’ that allows them to do just that. This discovery could help in the construction of origami robots and towards designing smart programmable materials.

News from the NWO Central Works Council

Works council advises about job classification system and director NWO-I

At the last meeting of the NWO Central Works Council (NWO COR) two subjects were high on the agenda. First of all, the issue as to whether changes within the job classification system had to be submitted to NWO COR. An external expert judged that this should happen in part. In addition, NWO COR advised the executive board representative whether the NWO institutes would benefit from a single director at NWO-I with final responsibility.

Calendar

NWO Pride network meeting

Aim of the third Pride network meeting is to improve the work environment of LGBTI people, by increasing the visibility and the formation of a...

About NWO-I

NWO-I, the Institutes Organisation of NWO, is an independent foundation belonging to NWO. The following nine institutes are part of NWO-I: AMOLF, ARCNL, ASTRON, CWI, DIFFER, Nikhef, NIOZ, NSCR and SRON. The 200-plus workgroups in which physics research takes place at Dutch universities and knowledge institutes are also part of NWO-I.

Contact

NWO-I
www.nwo-i.nl
info-nwoi@nwo-i.nl
(030) 600 12 11

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