News Article
Seeking socially aware engineers
Holst Centre is looking for 10% growth in number of researchers
Holst Centre, the open innovation research center located at High Tech Campus Eindhoven (NL) and initiated by imec (B) and TNO (NL) is looking for researchers. Thanks to the recent growth with around ten new partners, Holst Centre sees the opportunity to grow 10% in research staff. The combination of scientific knowledge and personal skills has proven hard to come by.
Jaap Lombaers, Managing Director at Holst Centre: "After our steep growth to around 20 partners by the end of 2008, the economic situation slowed down this pace. But although it was harder to get contracts signed, we all felt the growing enthusiasm of the potential partners for the open-innovation business model that we offer. Now that the economic situation seems to be improving, we see immediately see this enthusiasm translated in the number of new participations in our shared research programs."
As opposed to 2009, Holst Centre has grown with around 50% in the number of partnerships. Of course, more partners create more work, for which Holst Centre needs great minds: motivated people with in-depth technical knowledge and - equally important - good social skills. These are needed in the international context at Holst Centre, where researchers from 25 nationalities with various backgrounds and educations collaborate. One day you could be working with a PhD student in Chemistry from India, while the next day you attend a meeting with electrical engineers from an Asian multinational.
Marij Heil, Human Resource Director at Holst Centre: "Talent is one of the factors that distinguish us from other knowledge institutes over the world. Holst Centre aims to excel in the quality of its results and its researcher teams. Despite our worldwide recruiting activities, finding the right person for the right job is not always straightforward."
In total there are about 20 job opportunities - offered by mother organizations imec and TNO - waiting to be filled in a short term. A small amount concerns the replacement of personnel, but considering the current employee count of 160, the growth in personnel amounts to circa 10 percent. A large part of the vacancies is in the domain of future lighting technology (OLED) and body area networks for health and wellness monitoring. The research at Holst Centre typically targets technology that will be ready to go to market in 3 to 10 years and bridges (academic) fundamental research and (commercial) product development.
