Holst Center of the Netherlands is an R & D center with a difference. It works with companies to develop their knowhow on its high-tech campus in Eindhoven.
The Center is named after Gilles Holst, the father of the Philips Natlab. Holst set out his research methods in what has come to be known as “Holst’s ten rules”. These rules include adopting an interdisciplinary approach; cooperating across organizational boundaries without having too much respect for formal rules, focusing on application, recruiting young people who have proved capable of achieving things at university and giving an opportunity to tackle a completely new design.
Jaap Lombaers of the Science and Industry department of the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), one of the directors of the Host Center, explains how the Center applies this approach. “We conduct pragmatic research into subjects in which a number of companies are interested. If a company wants to get involved, it will contribute money, researchers, equipment and /or knowhow. Essentially, participating companies have free use of results emerging from the part of the program in which they are involved. Where a company’s researchers have contributed to an invention, the company will become joint owners of the patent.
Companies learn by working with researchers from IMEC, TNO, universities and other companies. The knowledge and experience acquired can be taken back to the company. In addition, we forge links between different chains, for example manufacturers of materials, equipment, semi-finished products and finished products.
It gives companies a chance to know highly education potential employees and allows universities to find a market for their brainpower. Eduard Houberichts of ASML Nederland regards the Holst Center as a major boost for the southern Netherlands and Flanders.
“At international level we know how the technology being developed in the semiconductor industry is finding application in the LCD market, the wider microsystem technology market (MEMS) and even in biotechnology,” Houberichts said.
The Holst Center can help us to become an active participant and partner in these new markets. The region has knowhow and an infrastructure for the IC technology that has been developed over the past 30 years.
It’s a good thing for ASML to have an institution like the Holst Center on its doorstep. Direct contact gives us the opportunity to consult with others when analyzing new technological developments to identify and develop the skills required to test the new functions of our machines.
Dr. Dominique Neerinckk of Belgian company Bekaert is also looking forward to constructive cooperation within the Holst Center. We understand that the Holst Center is going to build up knowledge of the deposition of coatings on large two-dimensional flexible surfaces. This seems to fit in with our core competence in the area of roll-to-roll production coatings on foils.
The company believes that it has something to offer the Holst Center, and that it will become familiar with new, relevant technologies via the Center. This is about open innovation, i.e. working with different partners to carry out precompetitive research into technologies and technology platforms that will ultimately be of interest to its business. Once it knows the specific content of the programs, it will be to look at how it can operate.
Professor Jo De Boaeck, vice president of IMEC and the other half of the two-man management board of the Holst Center, said: “Now we have 1,300 staff. At IMEC we successfully join forces with industrial partners to carry out research under one roof.”