Mission and vision

Mission

Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) is the Dutch national research institute for mathematics and computer science. Our mission is to conduct pioneering research in mathematics and computer science, generating new knowledge in these fields and conveying it to society at large, and to industry in particular.

Vision

CWI advances the scientific foundations of our digital society and supports the national mathematics and computer science communities. CWI wants to be a connector for these communities, a breeding ground for talent and a place of scientific interaction.

Because ideas are only effective when they are shared, knowledge transfer plays an important role in our work. We have an excellent international network and collaborate with both public and private partners. We nurture young research talent and foster spin-off companies. We also make our innovative software tools available to researchers, companies and the general public.

Two pillars

The strategy to realize CWI's vision has two pillars:

Research

To align with the needs of science and society, CWI will focus in the coming years on four areas of fundamental research:

1. algorithms
2. data and intelligent systems
3. cryptography and security
4. quantum computing.

The four research focus areas are the basis for steering all research investments, in refocusing research staff and in creating new connections between researchers with different expertise.

National Role

In the coming years, CWI will strengthen its role in the national mathematics and computer science communities in three ways.

1. Being a meeting place for research and cooperation: hosting joint research activities and providing opportunities for researchers to attend national seminars, participate in semester programmes, spend sabbaticals at CWI, and meet with national and international colleagues and with partners in industry.
2. Contributing to academic teaching: CWI researchers will spend on average ten percent of their working time on educational activities, such as transferring their expertise in university courses and supervising BSc and MSc students.
3. Attracting, developing and retaining talent: CWI already has a tenure track system and a phased career path for talented young researchers. On top of this, we intend to develop concrete plans to attract, develop and promote scientific talent in cooperation with Dutch universities.

The research semester programmes are the main levers of CWI to take its leadership role, team up with its communities to work together on scientific challenges with societal impact, create research consortia, develop grant proposals and tailored valorization approaches. CWI reallocates part of its basis funding towards support of its national role.

Key values

At CWI, we base our identity on three key values that serve as our guiding principles, both as an organisation and as individual researchers:

• Talent – We believe that combining different talents creates excellence, so we are careful to nurture young researchers from many different backgrounds.
• Invention – Real innovation begins with pioneering research. At CWI, conducting groundbreaking research is always our top priority and full-time occupation.
• Involvement – For CWI, research is always inspired by practical questions that can lead to game-changing solutions for industry and society.

Learn more about our achievements or read our strategic plan 2022-2027.