NLR, 2019Today is the 100th anniversary of NLR. A unique milestone. On 5 April 1919 the ‘Rijks-Studiedienst voor de Luchtvaart (RSL) – the Aviation Engineering Research Department – was established. Innovations in aviation and then space travel have advanced by leaps and bounds since then. The Netherlands and NLR have had a pioneering role.
NLR has been an ambitious, knowledge-based organization for a hundred years now, with a deep-seated desire to keep innovating. Our knowledge and expertise have made us one of the driving forces in the aerospace sector, both in our own country and elsewhere. Our staff search tirelessly for new technology and have the courage to think outside the box, translating trends and developments into actual solutions for the market. That drive is helping us make the world of transport safer, greener, more efficient and more effective.
Also in the next 100 years, we will keep looking ahead because we have to keep setting ourselves tougher challenges for aerospace to become more sustainable in the long term. The future looks highly demanding yet fascinating and it will require even faster innovation and closer cooperation, with the right driving forces behind it. We are devoting our knowledge and expertise to that future, with an eye on the interests of the commercial sector, the general public and the environment at all times. Together with our partners, we can help shape the fascinating world of tomorrow. We are on the threshold of innovations that will really break the mould. But plans and ideas only really get moving if they are nourished with the right kind of energy – and the amazing thing is that the source of that energy is still exactly the same as it was when we started a hundred years ago. That driving force is knowledge by NLR.
100 years NLR website live: 8 April
The jubilee website provides a unique overview of our milestones in the past 100 years, the history of NLR, a video with 100 years of NLR in the picture, and a series of interviews with, among others: Lieutenant General Dennis Luyt, Commander of the Royal Netherlands Air Force; Mike Stekelenburg, Chief Engineer of Pal-V and André Kuipers. Michel Peters, CEO of NLR, will kick off the interview series “Future outlook”.
