Robert-Jan Smits

Robert-Jan Smits (born 1958) has been the President of the executive board of the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands since May 2019.

In 2018–2019, he was a senior adviser for open access and innovation at the European Political Strategy Centre and from 2010 to 2018, he served as Director-General of Research and Innovation (RTD) at the European Commission.

Smits was involved in the creation of the large-scale research and development program Horizon 2020. This was a grant program from 2014 to 2020 with a budget of nearly €80 billion to stimulate research and innovation within the EU.

In addition, Smits is known for his key role in the realization of Europe's Plan S, to ensure that all publicly funded scientific publications are available in Open Access by 2020. The scientific journal Nature calls him in Nature's 10 ‘the architect of this year's bold push to get rid of paywalls in science publishing.’ Provided by Wikipedia