21 April 2017 Lucht- en Ruimtevaart Nederland (LRN)

LRN expresses concern about the governments topical expertise

On March 6th Lucht- en Ruimtevaart Nederland (LRN) expressed her concern by mail towards the Ministry of Economical Affairs and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (NEA) about the downscaling of staff focused on Aeronautics, in combination with a shift to management tasks.

These developments impoverish the topical expertise within RVO on the area of Aerospace innovation. In the past, the contact and consequent topical support from NEA, aimed at increasing the industry’s innovative capability, has greatly contributed to improving the competitive position of our sector in the international scene.

In response to the letter from LRN, Jasper Wesseling, plv Director-General Business and Innovation at the Ministry of Economical Affairs, invited LRN to a meeting to further clarify their care. We shall, of course, inform you about the outcome of this meeting in due time.

At the end of March, the Ministry of Economical Affairs presented the results of the satisfaction survey Topsector and Industrial policy. The results are in line with the observation of LRN. There are three clear suggestions for improvement, strengthening of knowledge being one of them.