Structures providing policy-relevant advice on infrastructures

The main funding organisation for basic research in the Netherlands is the Netherlands Organisation for Research (NWO) . NWO has a specific budget dedicated to fund medium (up to 1 Million Euro)  and large ( 1 - 5 Million Euro) research infrastructures. Decisions on funding are made after careful evaluation of proposals by a special committee, which advises the Executive Board of NWO. This budget for research infrastructures amounts to about 30 Meuro per year. Very large infrastructures are decided on an ad hoc basis, mostly in close consultation with the Government (Ministry of Education, Culture and Sciences, responsible for Science Policy).

As a first step to a national roadmap, a departemental advisory committee selected 8 projects which were mentioned in the Euroepan Roadmap (ESFRI) and which are of special importance to The Netherlands. This advice has been published earlier this year. It is to be expected that later this year preliminary budget reservations can be made for ESFRI as a whole. After that, a decision has to be taken with respect to individual projects

Policy development with respect to Life Watch

Life Watch is one of the proposed ESFRI projects by the departemental advisory committee.

National Life Watch network

At the moment working groups have been set up on a number of items:

• organisation Dutch LifeWatch network
• science agenda and scheduling Dutch research programmes
• societal agenda
• education and training
• organisation Dutch data network
• internationalisation
• strategic development/ lobby process

A national symposium in June 2008 resulted in expansion of the network .

Contacts

• For ESFRI: Ministry of Education, Culture and Science
• For Life Watch: Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research NWO, Dr. F. Martens
• For the national network: NL-BIF, dr. C. H.J. Hof