Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek (TNO; ) is an independent statutory research organization in the Netherlands that focuses on applied science. It conducts contract research, offers specialist consulting services, and grants licenses for patents and specialist software. TNO also sets up new companies to market innovations.

Background

TNO was established by law in 1932 to support companies and governments. TNO also held 10% of the Austrian research center Joanneum Research from 2004 to 2014.

Model

The work of TNO is focused on the so-called Top Sectors, and social issues relevant to Europe. The Early Research Programmes and Shared Innovation Programmes are always funded in part with public funds. Research results are further developed and applied in contract research, which is fully funded by TNO's customers.

Projects

Locations

TNO is headquartered in The Hague. Other locations include: Amsterdam, Delft, Rijswijk, Leiden, Groningen, Helmond, Petten, Soesterberg, Utrecht, Ypenburg, Zeist and Eindhoven. TNO also has international branch offices in Shin-Yokohama (Japan), Toronto (Canada), Brussels (Belgium), Doha (Qatar), Singapore and Aruba. The locations of Hoofddorp and Enschede were closed in 2014.

Criticism

During World War II, the organization controlled several large institutes under the occupation of the Nazis. The Director was Hugo Rudolph Kruyt. As rector of the University of Utrecht, he fired the Jewish professors Ornstein, Roos and Wolff and the Jewish student assistants Fisher, Katz, Pais and Van der Hoeven. He was a member of the board of the AKU, which was controlled by the Germans. In 2006, TNO-ITSEF, a subsidiary organization of TNO, was criticized for resisting the publication of its test reports regarding widely used voting computers in the Netherlands. In the same year, a Swiss research group refuted a widely publicized TNO report claiming UMTS radiation is a health hazard. The organization also received criticism after the evacuation of 200 residents of an Amsterdam housing estate over fears of its structural integrity when the construction had been technically approved by TNO only five months earlier. TNO was also criticized for its 2006 handling of an investigation into the collapse of a balcony in Maastricht in 2003 that killed two people. In 2018, TNO was accused of committing fraud to disguise the cause of the disaster for their report about the fireworks disaster in Enschede on 13 May 2000, according to an investigation by Paul van Buitenen.