FOM speech

Toespraak | 18-01-2011

·        What happens when you crowd more than 1,500 physicists together for two days? The exchange of a great deal of scientific thought, fruitful discussions, heated debates, new ideas and partnerships, cross-pollination, wonderful views of the future… and an astronomically high coffee bill. But that could not stop the organisers from holding the fifth annual FOM Conference in Veldhoven. By now, it has become the biggest conference of its kind.

·        Once again, these two days will offer you every opportunity to be brought up to date on the latest developments in Dutch physics research. Research of a high level, because the Netherlands ranks among the world’s leaders in physics. A position we owe to your collective efforts!

·        You will be given a broad picture since the conference will address a wide range of subjects: from graphene to optical physics, from plasmons to multilayer mirrors, from extreme UV lithography to CP violation and molecular imaging. All subjects that are difficult for most people to follow – even for a State Secretary. Nonetheless, these are the developments that ensure that our computers become increasingly faster, solar cells become more efficient and health care improves. We all enjoy the benefits of your work.

·        And these benefits are not only reflected in all kinds of practical applications, but also throughout our entire economy. Research and knowledge are the drivers of economic growth. They can increase the innovative strength of the business community so that our country will soon emerge from the recession even stronger than it was before.

·        This cabinet therefore believes it is very important for knowledge institutes, companies and the government to join forces. It is our aim to strengthen the interrelationship between knowledge, science, applied research and innovation policy.

·        Of course, this does not mean that science should be exclusively steered by economic issues. Researchers must always be given room for controversial and unorthodox ideas. Without academic freedom, countless revolutionary scientific breakthroughs would probably never have been accomplished. However, we should also accept that research may not always succeed. That is why researchers should be given room to fail.

·        I argued for this earlier at the ceremony for Nobel Prize winner André Geim, who will be speaking here tonight about his graphene research, sticky tape and levitating frogs. It was in fact the part of his budget that he had reserved for ‘collateral’ research that resulted in the gecko tape and graphene. And with graphene, Andre Geim brought to the Netherlands its 19^th Nobel Prize… and a great many wonderful applications that will benefit our economy.

·        Back to the host of this symposium, the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter: or FOM for short. You have the important task of promoting fundamental physics research in the Netherlands. You do this in many ways, for example by awarding these three prestigious annual prizes. Similar to the Nobel Prize for Physics, these prizes are awarded for outstanding scientific research that leads to practical applications.

o       The FOM Physics Thesis Award (10,000 euros) focuses attention on the high quality scientific physics research of young researchers;

o       The FOM Valorisation Chapter Prize (5,000 euros) encourages PhD students to devote a separate chapter of their thesis to the valorisation aspects of their research;

o       The FOM Valorisation Prize (250,000 euros, 235,000 of which the winner may spend on research of his/her choice and 15,000 in any way he/she chooses) is awarded to a Dutch researcher (or group of researchers) who successfully turns the results of the research into something that is useful for society.

·        The time has come. It is an honour and a privilege for me to present the 2010 FOM prizes. The FOM Physics Thesis Award and the FOM Valorisation Chapter Prize are both awarded to a talented, young researcher. The jury believes that in his PhD project he has performed an impressive number of experiments with a sound theoretical foundation. In the last chapter of his thesis, moreover, he describes with a great deal of creativity, a broad spectrum of realistic applications for the scientific results. The jury therefore decided that there could be only one winner of these two prizes: Ewold Verhagen!

·        The FOM Valorisation Prize is a tribute to the winner who is placed under the spotlight as an inspiration to others. The jury’s attention was drawn to someone who is working to develop relevant knowledge for industrial partners, without losing sight of the fundamental aspects of his research. “He has taken every step from fundamental physical research, via empirical proof of the physical possibilities up to and including application in various industrial prototypes,” was the conclusion of the selection committee led by Joop Sistermans (chair of the Advisory Council for Science and Technology Policy). The second FOM Valorisation Prize goes to the Head of the Nanolayer Surface and Interface Physics Department of the Rijnhuizen Institute , who is also a professor at the University of Twente: Fred Bijkerk.