Appendix
Financials

This section provides further information regarding QuTech’s finances, based on the framework of the Partner Covenant established in 2015. Note that this financial overview does not take funding from other grant providers or partners (Microsoft, Intel) into account.

The QuTech Partner Covenant was signed by the following partners:

  • The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate (MinEZK)
  • The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (MinOCW)
  • The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO)
  • Delft University of Technology (TU Delft)
  • The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)
  • TKI Holland High Tech

The covenant partners agreed to financially support QuTech for the 10-year period from June 2015 to June 2025. The funding for the first 5 years was allocated at the start of QuTech. The allocation of the budgets for the second period (2020-2025) was conditional to a positive midterm evaluation. The highly positive midterm evaluation we received in March 2019 formed the basis for all partners to continue their support in the second half of the QuTech partner covenant funding.

Scientific, engineering and support staff at QuTech, as well as all operating budgets and investments, are currently funded through three primary sources:

  1. TU Delft and TNO as central partners
  2. The covenant partners Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, TKI Holland High Tech, NWO/ENW, and NWO/TTW
  3. Industry funding

In addition to funding from the above contributing parties, QuTech researchers receive funding for PhD students, postdocs, running budgets and investments via research grants applied for through the NWO, the European Union (ERC grants, H2020 grants), IARPA, ARO, etc.


The 10-year budget established in 2015 in the Partner Covenant includes the following in-kind and in-cash contributions by partners:


TU Delft in-kind29M€
TU Delft in-cash20M€
TNO in cash strategic funds*29.75M€
Ministry of Ec. Affairs & TKI via TNO21M€

NWO/ENW in cash

NWO/TTW in cash

36.18

9.6

M€

M€

Total145.53M€


Because TU Delft and TNO use different internal funding systems, it is difficult to compare the contributions of both organizations. The biggest difference is that the TNO budget remains at TNO and is administered as a project, based on full-cost hourly rates. The TU Delft contribution is an integral part of the QuTech annual budget as means QuTech’s core permanent staff.

TU Delft budget

The 10-year commitment of TU Delft includes:


In-kind contribution (29 million euro)

  • Provision for housing, energy, cleanroom, infrastructure and professors/ researchers/personnel from the TU Delft faculties Applied Sciences (TNW) and Electrical Engineering, Mathematics & Computer Science (EWI).

In-cash contribution (20 million euro + 5 mln **)

  • Provided from TU Delft strategy funds.

**The in-cash contribution from the TU Delft central funds changed in 2019, from € 2M per year to € 3M a year. In addition, QuTech’s operations are supported in kind by the TU Delft support organization.

TNO budget

The 10-year TNO budget consists of:


TNO strategic funds (29.75 million euro)

  • SMO (Samenwerkings Middelen Onderzoek) from the High Tech Systems and Materials roadmap and ICT roadmap
  • Early Research Programme

Partner Covenant Funding through TNO

  • Ministry of Economic Affairs via TNO for QuTech purposes (11.75 million euro)
  • TKI allowance via TNO (9.25 million euro), based on the contribution of 1 million euro/year from private companies

NWO funding in Partner Covenant

At the start of QuTech, FOM, STW and NWO were separate organizations contributing funding. From these organizations we received the following funding for the years 2015-2020, and spent the money accordingly:

  • NWO/ENW: 3.75 million euro for the startup packages for three QuTech PIs (two group leaders and one full professor).

  • NWO/ENW: 3.75 million euro reflecting the Industrial Partnership Programme (IPP) with Microsoft.

  • NWO/TTW: 2.6 million euro for PhD students, materials, equipment, cleanroom, and engineers has been spent as described in a proposal approved by TTW.

  • NWO/TTW in 2019 also awarded the annual budget of 1 million euro for 2018 and for 2019 based on plans submitted by QuTech.

The TKI-allowance generated from the IPP collaboration between Microsoft, TU Delft, NWO/ENW was intended to be routed via NWO/ENW. In 2017, QuTech, NWO/ENW and TKI Holland High Tech agreed to grant the allowance directly to QuTech.


In 2020, NWO awarded the remaining 12.5 million euros as agreed upon in the Partner Covenant to be used on fundamental application-oriented and application-based research into quantum technologies for computing and communication.