ASTRONOMY IN THE NETHERLANDS

We describe the state of astronomical research in the Nether- lands per early 2012. We add some notes on its history of this research and on the strategic choices for the future. Compared to the size of the country (16 million people) the Netherlands is maintaining a high profile in astronomical research over a period of more than one century. The pro- fessional research community consists of about 650 people. This includes research staff, postdocs, PhD students, technical staff working on instru- mentation projects and people involved in the operations of ground-based telescopes and astronomical space missions. We do not take into account staff working for international organizations based in the Netherlands. As- tronomical research in the Netherlands is carried out at four university institutes and two national research institutes that fall under the umbrella of the national funding agency NWO. The Netherlands is the host of two in- ternational organizations: ESTEC, the technology division of the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE). The Netherlands are one of the founding members of the European South- ern Observatory (ESO) and of ESA. This paper will address a number of significant multilateral collaborations.