At the cross road of science and applications

 

Since November 2004 Arjen van Tunen is the new CEO of Keygene NV, a company active in the field of plant breeding and molecular genetics. Before that he worked at a research institute and for a university. What made him change to a commercial environment? In this article he explains why he accepted an opening at Keygene and said goodbye to the academic world.

 

The CV

Arjen van Tunen studied Medical Biology and after graduation he got his PhD at the Free University of Amsterdam in the field of molecular genetics of plants. Subsequent to that he started working at Plant Research International in 1991. Here he founded a new research group (Flower development), became head of one of the research departments (research to develop Plants as Factories for Biochemical compounds) and accepted the position of Director Research in 1998. After working 10 years at PRI he became director of the Swammerdam Institute which is a research institute of the University of Amsterdam. The institute was a result of a merger. Van Tunen’s main task was to make the merger complete, and to create one organisation. “I like to organise new things and to give it a strategic direction strongly underpinned with scientific content.” This is also one of the reasons Van Tunen choose Keygene as his next workplace. “I’ve always been on the cross road of science and applications. First from the perspective of a research institute, than from a university and now from the commercial perspective of a research company.”

 

Keygene

Keygene is founded in 1989 by a number of Dutch seed companies to jointly invest in plant biotechnology. Keygene is a 100 employees big research company active in the field of gene technologies and genetic expertise for plant breeding.

Keygene is now again focussing on developing and looking for new technologies and innovations to optimally serve our customers and insure the continuity of the company. Arjen van Tunen is in charge of this turnaround, so again he is responsible for changing an organisation. “The research is therefore divided into two parts, the Applied part which is responsible for improving, implementing and use of existing technologies and Upstream Research which is responsible for new and innovative research,” explains Van Tunen. To find new technologies Keygene is also scouting  other organisations.

 

The job description

As the CEO Arjen van Tunen is responsible for leading the company. On a day to day basis this means that he is the interface between the shareholders and the company as well as the Work Council and other parties. He is also involved in recruitment of the staff and he makes the budgets. Besides the management tasks, he is also director of the division Upstream Research. The combination of management and research is what makes the job challenging for him “The best aspect of my function is that I can truly build something. I have more opportunities in this function then in my previous job. This way I can put a lot of my own innovation force in it.”

 

Academia versus industry

Van Tunen cannot say what he prefers: working for a university or working for industry. “They are very different employers, but I cannot say that one is better than the other. At the university you have a lot of freedom, but the supporting services, like the patent office, are sometimes far from professional. With Keygene you find the opposite; patenting is done professionally because it is an important part of a commercial organisation. But here we sometimes miss the free and creative minds of students and PhDs. And researchers have less freedom to decide which way they want to go with their research.” 

Van Tunen experiences also regional differences. In Amsterdam, where the Swammerdam Institute is located, people are more direct. “Here in Wageningen decisions are taken less direct, people are less explicit about it”. Besides that Wageningen has a strongly agro orientated environment. This homogeneity is a strong point: everybody is active in the same area but it also results in less input from other research fields like chemistry or physics.

 

Bio Career Event; an excellent place to meet people

One of the responsibilities of Van Tunen is recruiting new employees. Especially in the field of molecular biology, Keygene had a lot of competition from the medical sector. “The Netherlands is in the field of Agro Food one of the most important players in the world. Despite the research and biotechnological chalanges and possibilities in Agro Food most job seekers would rather work in the medical sector than work with plants, even if the job description is the same. Plants are just not so sexy.”

Van Tunen would like to have more employees from abroad. They have a different view on research, have a different culture and bring in a different network. Besides this, Keygene has nowadays two foreign share holders; a French and a Japanese seed company have bought themselves in Keygene. “It will benefit the communication with our foreign share holders if we employ a few French employees. The same goes for Japan. The difficulty is that working in the Netherlands is not so popular abroad. If people know The Netherlands, they mostly know Amsterdam and do not always want to work in Wageningen.”

Besides foreigners Keygene is also interested in job seekers that have experience in other work fields. By employing people with a background in the medical sector Keygene can obtain DNA techniques and skills from that sector and turn it into a technique that is fit for plant breeding. “That is one of the reasons we take part in Bio Career Event. It is an excellent place to meet people from other backgrounds.”

 

Keygene’s post-doc program

Keygene is a good employer according to Van Tunen: “We have excellent labour agreements and we work in a stimulating competitive research area. Keygene gives ambitious researchers great support and provides excellent research facilities and equipment.. And we have a unique post-doc program.” Van Tunen has developed this program together with the human resources department of Keygene. This program makes it possible to do a post doc project, follow training courses and publish an article with the support of Keygene. The goal of the program is for Keygene to make use of the creativity of scientists, and to obtain flexibility and cultural diversity. For the researchers an important benefit is that they can make use of the facilities of Keygene and they also develop a feeling for working in a commercial environment. The selection procedure for this program is very severe. “The first post-doc candidates have started with their research, but we are still looking for more candidates!”
 

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