“TU/e wants to stimulate entrepreneurship and knowledge valorization among its students and academic staff,” Sonja Vos-Poppelaars says. As a result of these ambitions, the time has come for TU/e Innovation Lab to reorganize its activities, in order to create “room to take up the aforementioned challenges,” she says.

TU/e Innovation Lab is a company that was founded in 2004 as part of the TU/e holding with the aim of actively enhancing the valorization of the university’s scientific knowledge. In 2011, the company was converted into TU/e’s ninth central service under the leadership of director Steef Blok, who stepped down in autumn of last year.

The unit Business Development continued under its new name The Gate at the start of this year and will remain part of the same management unit, together with the Research Support Office. Both The Gate and the Research Support Office have twelve staff members, all of whom will continue to be employed by TU/e. The unit Strategic Partnership will fall under the service General Affairs, led by university secretary Susanne van Weelden.

The university has looked for “logical landing places” for seven staff members who currently do not work at one of these three units, according to Vos-Poppelaars, who has been acting as director of TU/e Participations since 2017 and who has been in charge of the reorganization at TU/e Innovation Lab as ad interim director since the departure of Blok.

Clear outline

Marjo van der Valk, union representative at TU/e and staff member at the Innovation Lab, says that the unions are satisfied with how the reorganization has been carried out and most definitely with the role played by Vos-Poppelaars. “A clear outline was drafted in advance of the old situation and the new one. Practically everyone was allowed to stay, talks are still being held with one employee. I myself can complete my ongoing activities until I retire later this year. There was some concern within the service in the past few months, because the preparations had taken a lot of preliminary work. When a reorganization is forthcoming, people quickly want to know what to expect.”

Vos-Poppelaars says that she will continue to monitor the situation after July 1. “Even though my role as transition manager will expire by that time, I do feel the aftercare duty to make sure that certain matters are properly phased-out.”