Public Affairs

The Public Affairs Department of NWO maintains systematic contact with politicians. This means that we regularly speak with the government, political fractions in the upper and lower houses of the Dutch parliament and political parties about the development of science in the Netherlands and NWO’s role in that.

This approach fits within the broad relations policy aimed at, for example, the various government ministries, the large national umbrella organisations, industry and the media. This is of course in addition to the very large number of contacts that the organisation maintains with the scientific community and the international research arena.

Contacts with politicians take place in close collaboration with NWO's Governing Board and General Management. The ongoing debate with politicians means that the organisation could continue to grow over the last few years despite the constraints on the economy. After all, scientific research is one of the cornerstones of the innovation policy that was powerfully realised under the former Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende. The Public Affairs Department intends to further this trend along the lines of the strategy memorandum 2011-2014 Growing through knowledge.

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last modified on 10 December 2010