Paul Heremans Becomes Technology Director Flexible Electronics at Holst Centre

As of Jan. 7, 2013, imec fellow Paul Heremans has become technology director for the Flexible Electronics Research activities at Holst Centre. One of his key roles will be to steer the research portfolio and to be involved in the acquisition of new industrial partners. He will combine his role at Holst Centre with his part-time professorship at KU Leuven and the activities related to his advanced grant of the European Research Council (ERC).

As Holst Centre has grown at rapid pace, research portfolio management has become a key strategic activity. In view of the mission of Holst Centre to be the link between fundamental research and commercial product development, it is crucial to maintain a healthy balance of topics that attract industrial interest on short term and those that can secure the value of Holst Centre on longer term.

“I am looking forward very much to Paul’s broadening involvement in our activities and I wish him a great time in his new role,” said Jaap Lombaers, managing director at Holst Centre. “Paul has been an essential contributor to our success in the past six years and I know him as a strongly driven research leader with an excellent international scientific reputation and strong links with industry. Because of his background and relations at imec, his assignment will also help to intensify the synergies and collaboration between imec and Holst Centre in the organic and large-area electronics field.”

Heremans received the Ph. D. degree in electrical engineering in 1990 at the University of Leuven, Belgium, on hot-carrier degradation of MOS transistors. He then joined the opto-electronics group of imec, where he worked on optical inter-chip interconnects, and on high-efficiency III-V thin-film surface-textured light-emitting diodes.

In 1998, he started the research on organic electronics and organic photovoltaics at imec. When Holst Centre was created in 2006 as collaboration between imec and TNO, he became one of the Holst Centre program managers for organic and oxide transistors, and in January 2012, also for the Flexible OLED Displays Program.

Paul is also imec fellow, professor at the Electrical Engineering Department of the University of Leuven, editor of the journal Organic Electronics and holder of an advanced grant of the European Research Council (ERC).