Kenneth Heijns becomes director of I&IC

TU Delft’s Innovation and Impact Centre (I&IC) has a new director as of 1 January: Kenneth Heijns. Until June 2024, he was general director at the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS). He stayed at AMS for a while, until he transferred to I&IC in September. As an employee there he is supporting the transdisciplinary research and innovation centre FRAIM, among other things.

Heijns studied mechanical engineering at TU Delft. He then worked in industry, but returned to his alma mater in 2007. Before being seconded to the AMS in 2017, he was, among other things, faculty secretary of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment.

The Executive Board, which appointed Heijns, believes he is ‘ideally suited to realise our ambitions for further expand our impact,’ according to a cvb message. I&IC is tasked with securing major collaboration contracts with external parties. ‘We are confident that his many years of experience at TU Delft will also make him the right person to provide the I&IC’s more than 150 innovation professionals with a safe and stimulating work environment in which they can thrive and excel,’ says cvb member Marien van der Meer in the message.

Heijns will succeed Alice Stäbler, who had been interim director of I&IC since 28 March 2024. Her appointment came after a troubled period for I&IC. Stäbler’s predecessor left within a year, after 15 reports about him were made to the confidential adviser. Delta wrote a research article about this earlier, after which TU Delft’s legal department summoned the editor-in-chief to remove it. It then took months before Delta could republish the piece.