The NWO Divisions

NWO comprises eight divisions. They allocate subsidies and grants, mostly within programmatic limitations, to scientists from their own specific disciplines. The divisions have their own budget, Council Board and Council Executive Committee.

• Earth and Life Sciences (ALW)
• Chemical Sciences (CW)
• Physical Sciences (EW)
• Humanities (GW)
• Social Sciences (MaGW)
• Medical Sciences (ZonMw)
• Physics (N)
• Technical Sciences (STW)

More often than not NWO divisions, in all kinds of combinations, cooperate in research programmes. Scholars and scientists are voicing a growing desire for such ‘multidisciplinarity’. Genomics research, for example, not only covers medical, biotechnological and biochemical research areas, but also profits from information science, and in addition has an obvious social component. Multidisciplinary cooperation is taking shape pre-eminently in the context of the cross-disciplinary themes which NWO has designated in close consultation with the experts in the field. Those are the areas where Dutch science is thriving and which are expected to continue to yield good results in the future.