Faculty receives 2.7 million euros a year from science/engineering sector plan

On Monday 8 July, the minister of education, culture and science officially awarded additional resources for fundamental research in the context of the sector plans. This means that 17 positions in our faculty will be funded by a budget of €2.7 million a year.

The investment in sector plans is part of a broader reinforcement of the science/engineering sector that the cabinet wants to achieve. Through these sector plans, the government is giving scientific research in the Netherlands a boost, and it is strengthening ties between higher education and research in the engineering sector.

Because the sector plan resources are insufficient to cover the full breadth of engineering, last year the administrator opted to invest in the construction engineering sciences due to their importance to the Dutch (manufacturing) industry and for the technological innovations that are needed to solve major social challenges. The construction engineering sciences encompass mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and civil engineering. The research field of aerospace engineering will fall within this sector outlook and be incorporated into mechanical engineering.

We have been working with the engineering faculties of five universities in recent months to give shape to this sector plan. The faculties have coordinated with each other and indicated which focal areas they want to invest the available resources in. Our faculty has made a tremendous effort to gather all of the required information, figures and forecasts for the sector plan. Together with all of the departments in the 3mE faculty, the management team has identified six focal areas that will receive additional funding from the sector plan resources. They are the following:

• Multi-phase flow for low-carbon systems
• Transport conversion & storage of heat
• Sustainable design and manufacturing of materials
• Materials for extreme conditions
• Data-driven modelling and control
• Human-robot interaction

Within these focal points, 17 new academic staff positions will be created using these sector plan resources. Our new challenge now is to fill all of these vacancies (also those outside the sector plan) in our faculty. Many departments and services are already actively working towards this goal.

Theun Baller, dean of 3mE and André Groenhof, secretary of 3mE, would like to thank everyone who contributed to the development of this sector plan.