Five years as a director: a retrospective and a peek at the future

Five years as a director: a retrospective and a peek at the future
Press inquiries
Until October last year, Geert de Snoo was at the helm of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW). A few months later, we look back with him on five years of directorship and talk about his new role as director of research policy at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).
Geert, how are you?
"I am having a great time at the KNAW. Of course, NIOO is a wonderful institute, but this is also another great environment. With new colleagues and new challenges. It works differently if you are active within one institute, then you can oversee the content much better. That has its merits. But now there are many institutes with many different disciplines. And I really like that too, because I like working across borders and there are plenty of opportunities to do that here."
Can you give an example?
"One of the things I am working on is exploring whether we can collaborate more. We have ten research institutes at the KNAW (including NIOO) and two institutes for scientific infrastructure. They are all strong institutes in their own fields and disciplines. But it is also interesting to see what we can do together. We have already met once with all the directors to see if there are themes we could all work on together. You can think of a mission, vision and various themes. Similar to what we have done at the NIOO in recent years. And that energises me a lot!"
What is it like for you to be involved with NIOO in your new role? For example, how does it feel when you walk around here again?
"It feels very familiar, like a warm bath. We recently had a periodic administrative meeting with NIOO. Meetings like that are about the strategy, what the plans are, how things stand with the budget, et cetera. And I can only say that Wim (van der Putten, interim director NIOO, ed.) and Ingeborg (Oude Lansink, director of operations NIOO, ed.) did very well in this new setting. Asking each other questions in a different way, that was actually a lot of fun."
What do you look back on most proudly?
"I hadn't been there long before corona came. I didn't actually know the institute well yet, but we had to go into crisis mode right away. We stayed open, that was the good news. There were a lot of concerns about social cohesion, but learning as we went, we managed to get through it!
Something else I look back on with pride are the steps we took in cooperation with, for instance, Naturalis, Westerdijk and NIOZ, which resulted in BiodiversityXL: the Centre of Excellence for Dutch biodiversity research.
And working together bottom-up to create a strategy plan for the entire NIOO was great fun, which naturally made the evaluation of the institute afterwards go very well. It is not only a very complete plan, but also one supported by the entire organisation. I hope this will enable it to be more meaningful towards the future."
How do you see your own future in relation to ecological research?
"I will of course still remain active as a researcher, so I will definitely keep an eye on what is happening at NIOO. No longer on the basis of affiliation with the institute, but still from my chair in Leiden."
And speaking of the future: what do you see for NIOO?
"Ecology can no longer be overlooked in society. The profession being practised, the science, is really urgent. With good reliable knowledge and a bit more predictive value, NIOO can continue to play a very important role in this. And to bring about change, it is necessary to connect with more other (social) disciplines on the one hand, but especially even more closely with organisations or parts of society. I was also happy that the Social Advisory Council came about in my last weeks. The questions we received there were very different from those from academia. The institute can still grow a lot through that. There is a need for ecological knowledge and together with other parties we need to look at how we can use that knowledge to achieve change."
Since De Snoo's departure, Wim van der Putten is acting as NIOO's interim director for the near future. An interview about his background and how he will continue what De Snoo was already working on will soon be available from him as well. A new director is expected to be appointed this spring.
The Penicillium geertdesnooi
At his farewell reception with many fine lectures last autumn, De Snoo received a special gift. In his speech, Pedro Crous of the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute and former fellow director of an Academy institute spoke passionately about their collaboration. He was allowed to announce that the Westerdijk Institute has named a fungal species after De Snoo as a thank you: the Penicillium geertdesnooi! This species was found in soil around his favourite flower: a poppy.
International TV appearance
In De Snoo's last weeks at the NIOO, a TV crew from Wales dropped by. They came to the Netherlands because they see our country as a source of inspiration and want to learn from us in the field of ecology and (restoring) biodiversity. For the news item, ITV Wales visited the Markerwadden and NIOO. They spoke to De Snoo about declining biodiversity and how we can fix it.
Media snippet
How Wales can learn from the Netherlands, who are world leaders in conservation
(Former) director Geert de Snoo talks about biodiversity in the Netherlands
Recording by ITV Wales

