Character

Margot has a positive mind set and always tries to bring people together and help them to be successful. Margot is convinced that the solution to current and future societal challenges lies in multidisciplinary science whereby public private partners from different backgrounds join forces. This belief motivates her to assist and advice others. She has the required people skills, understands the partner specific needs and makes sure these are understood and taken into account within collaborations. Margot is highly organized, efficient, precise, trustworthy and thinks ahead. Principal investigators appreciate her pro-active and constructive attitude and her ability to make sure that partners deliver what has been promised. Margot is independent and thus can give advice without having any personal interest other than to make a project successful. Margot is curious and easily adopts projects in different scientific disciplines without being hindered by topic specific jargon.

 

Career

In 1989 Margot Beukers graduated from Leiden University with an MSc in Biopharmaceutical Sciences. After internships in Basel Switzerland and Stanford University she completed her PhD at Leiden University in 1995. After two postdoc positions in Amsterdam/Nijmegen and Leiden she became Assistant Professor at Leiden University in 2002. In 2007 she obtained her first experience with the management of public private partnerships. After completion of her international MBA in 2010 she decided to start her own company Science Business Support in 2011. In the mean time she has managed a large number of partnerships ranging from 6-27 partners and budgets up to 21 M€. Recently she has managed large programs in which besides academic partners other partners such as SMEs, global companies, health foundations, ministries and governmental institutes collaborate. The topic of these programs ranges from life science including medical technology, to biological, nanotechnology and water management programs. In all these partnerships Margot enjoys to give support on the research collaboration itself as well as on legal, financial, reporting and dissemination aspects. Margot finds it highly rewarding to bring people together and to achieve a long lasting relationship and deliver on the aims of the project. She also enjoys assisting young researchers to progress in their career.

Keywords

Science and technology; project agreement; project monitoring; dissemination; personal approach; dedication