Kroon’s departure was announced to her Chemical Engineering colleagues two weeks ago and was quite unexpected. “Yes, many people are surprised,” Kroon says, “and I can imagine. Until a few months ago I hadn’t thought I’d be leaving for Abu Dhabi either. I wasn’t even looking for another job, as I was happy right here.”

When the Petroleum Institute contacted her back in April she didn’t jump at the opportunity, says the woman who became the youngest female professor in the Netherlands when she started at TU/e in 2011. “I wasn’t convinced right away, so I told them to make me an offer I couldn’t refuse.” 

And they did: being offered a princely salary, she will be given a free hand to set up her own group, and shape the institute’s new PhD program. On top of that, she will receive ten million euros to realize her own lab.

“It’s a higher position with more responsibilities and better budgets. Since I won’t have to spend time writing research proposals, I can use that to do research and administrative duties.” It’s a promotion that wouldn't have been possible at TU/e or anywhere else in the Netherlands. 

She came to a decision in late August: “I didn’t want to do the same thing until my retirement and my kids are young, so it’s still relatively easy to take them with us. And I might not ever get this chance again.”

She knows the Petroleum Institute, too. “My promoter Cor Peters works there as a professor as well, and he’s visiting professor at TU/e. Since the Petroleum Institute does not yet have a PhD program, two of his students have graduated in my group.”