The Netherlands is missing many opportunities by not marketing scientific knowledge, by betting on too many horses and by not following through. So says TNO chief Tjark Tjin-A-Tsoi. “Policy, schmolicy. You can make policy all you want, but if it’s not executed upon, nothing happens.”
For years, Tjark Tjin-A-Tsoi was the boss of Statistics Netherlands (CBS), the club of statisticians who keep a finger on the pulse of the Netherlands – inflation, population growth, tax revenues – but who have no opinion about the developments. But as CEO of TNO, Tjin-A-Tsoi is making himself heard. Because if the Netherlands wants to retain its prosperity, he believes a lot has to change – including within his own organization.
“TNO was founded in 1932 to fill the gap between business and academia,” Tjin-A-Tsoi says in a small meeting room in one of the office towers next to The Hague Central Station. “The Netherlands had many good scientists and also Nobel Prize winners, but the spillover to industry was limited.”
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