TPM's highly appreciated research groups

Breaking down all the barriers

In recent years, TPM ’s research programme Next Generation Infrastructures (NGI nfra) has earned itself a solid international reputation as a breeding ground for innovative research on infrastructure. In many respects, NGI nfra is a rather unorthodox programme. This places some pressure on a review committee which is tasked with providing an overall assessment of substantive quality and performance. In addition, the results send out an important message to the outside world.

The programme received an excellent assessment in all criteria. Programme leader Margot Weijnen: “Although I am not surprised, I do feel honoured by the many compliments we received from the committee. This assessment confirms our belief in the enormous potential of research into
infrastructure systems.”

Example: Smart Grids and Electric Driving
By: Remco Verzijlbergh, PhD candidate in the Energy & Industry section

The electricity sector is in transition. The changes are characterised by more fluctuating renewable energy sources, higher energy consumption (ironically, energy conservation often goes hand-inhand with an increase in the use of electricity, as in the example of a gas-fired central heating boiler being replaced by a heat pump or a petrol-driven car by an electric one) and more local, small-scale generation.

Example: Maasvlakte 2
By: Dr Rob Stikkelman, Director, Centre for Port Innovation and Regional Development, TU Delft

What are you worth as a NGInfra research programme if you are not involved in the country’s most appealing infrastructural project: the development of Maasvlakte 2 (MV2)? This is why, since 1 September 2010, we have been working in alliance with the Rotterdam Port Authority on the programme ‘Next
Generation Port Infra, powered by Maasvlakte 2’. The aim is to enable the application of existing NGInfra knowledge in the development, realisation and organisation of MV2. The initiative has been received very enthusiastically.

Read more about the research programme Next Generation Infrastructures in the TPM Quarterly, Year IX, nr. 1 (March 2011)

License to operate

As a ‘licence to operate’: this is how Peter Kroes, Jeroen van den Hoven and Maarten Franssen see the excellent assessment of their research programme Philosophy of Technology, Design and Values. In the programme, around thirty TPM scientists are taking a primarily philosophical look at how technology develops and the moral impact that it has. “Our focus is not on the strictly instrumental functionality of things, but on other value areas.”

Example: Moral responsibility in research networks
By: Dr Ibo van de Poel, Associate Professor, Philosophy section and Director of the 3TU. Centre for Ethics and Technology

In the project ‘moral responsibility in research networks’ philosophers from TU Delft and TU Eindhoven have conducted joint research into the sharing of responsibility in nonhierarchical research networks. These types of networks face a particular problem because of the large numbers of people involved: everyone looks at each other when it comes to taking responsibility for the possible social consequences of the new technology. The researchers investigated how and why the problem of many people being involved actually occurs and developed a range of different solutions to the problem.

Example: Nuclear waste
By: Dr Behnam Taebi, Assistant Professor in Philosophy of Technology

The debate about nuclear energy generally comes down to whether one is for or against. Even in the Netherlands, the cabinet faces an impending decision on the construction of one or two new power plants and this is causing a great deal of controversy in society at large. But before we can answer the question about its desirability, we first need to properly identify exactly what nuclear energy is. After all, various different production methods entail different choices for current and future generations.

Read more about the research programme Philosophy of Technology, Design, and Values in the TPM Quarterly, Year IX, nr. 1 (March 2011)

Space to explore new areas

The research programme led by Wil Thissen is not one with clearly-defined parameters or structure. Multi-Actor Systems (MA S) covers various different departments and sections and is also deeply interwoven with the Next Generation Infrastructures programme. “The review committee could have asked critical questions about the wide variety and the relationship between our different research themes. There are six in total. Isn’t that too many isolated components? It is a question we have also asked ourselves”, says Thissen. But instead of that, MA S was rated highly for the dynamism and content of the programme.

Example: Smart vortex
By: Dr Stephan Lukosch, Associate Professor, Systems Engineering section

Since October 2010, the Systems Engineering section has been participating in SMART VORTEX. This project is funded by the European Commission as part of the Seventh Framework Programme. Its aim is to provide a technological infrastructure for the intelligent management and analysis of extremely large data streams so that they:

• achieve cooperation and decision-making that focus on objectives, for all actors in the entire life-cycle of the product
• can promote innovation in the area of joint institutions across several organisations, and
• can expand the value chains, based on knowledge

Example: Overcoming System-level Transitional Inertia: Accelerating the Dutch Energy Transition
By: Dr Erik Pruyt, Assistant Professor, Policy Analysis section

This NWO project was applied for and is supervised by Wil Thissen and Erik Pruyt from Policy Analysis, Igor Mayer from Policy, Organisation, Law and Gaming (POLG) and Matthijs Hischemöller from VU University Amsterdam. It focuses on the causes of inertia in energy transitions (more specifically in the
built-up environment) and on innovative control mechanisms to combat this inertia. To achieve this, three researchers are using and combining a range of different approaches and methods at different levels.

Read more about the research programme Multi-Actor Systems in the TPM Quarterly, Year IX, nr. 1 (March 2011)

Lots of interesting business activity

“The most valuable thing about the external inspection is that it forces you to reflect on what you are doing and what your plans are for the years to come. The programme always has to be in order. You need to know your strengths, but also your weaknesses in order to improve them. For example, it is important to cut out the old wood.” With their Innovation Systems research programme, Cees van Beers and Alfred Kleinkecht were fully prepared. The only additional work they needed to do when the review committee announced its impending arrival, was to put together a PowerPoint presentation, so to speak.

Example: Information Technology (IT) and Firm Performance: The Role of Innovation?
By: Ir. Fardad Zand

IT Business Value (ITBV) focuses its research on three core issues that are of crucial importance for business managers, technology managers and policymakers: 1) what are the tangible and intangible influences of IT investments at the company, sector and national level? (2) how, and by means of what mechanisms does IT influence company results, sector efficiency and national productivity? (3) why do some companies, sectors and countries clearly benefit
from their IT investments while others with a similar level of investment do not?

Example: Determinants of Innovative Behaviour
By: Dr Robert M. Verburg, Associate Professor, TSE Section

An increasing number of companies strive to achieve innovation and more and more work can be characterised as knowledge work. Overall, it is the specialists rather than the generalists who come out on top and the added value that employees contribute to the final product is now extremely high. In the past, entrepreneurs controlled important capital goods but nowadays they are increasingly dependent on the knowledge factor, which does not generally take the form of a machine in a factory but actually resides in people’s heads. Our research focuses on finding answers to the question of how companies can recruit and direct the right people in order to maximise performance and contribute towards innovation. These insights form the basis for the teaching in our Master’s programme, Management of Technology (MOT).

Read more about the research programme Innovation Systems in the TPM Quarterly, Year IX, nr. 1 (March 2011)

Back to business

For someone who spends his days dealing with crises and disasters, a visit by the visitation committee can hardly be described as nervewracking. Ben Ale is down to earth in his assessment: “I believe it is only normal for people to want to see what we have achieved with our programme, if only because so much money is spent on it. It is also great to receive confirmation of the fact that we are on the right track, but that is about as far as it goes.”

Example: Security at airfields
By: Dr Coen van Gulijk, Assistant Professor, Safety Science section

Human factors are an important area of research in the issue of safety. In general, protection against accidents is the key issue, in other words, situations that cause unintended damage. The BEMOSA project investigates the human factor in protection against situations that lead to deliberate damage: security at airports. The conduct of staff and visitors to airfields is examined by means of ethnographic research in order to develop a behavioural model for security (BEhavioral MOdel for Security at Airports: BEMOSA).

Example: Shell project
By: Prof. Ben Ale, Professor of Safety Science and Disaster Abatement, TU Delft

The recent disaster in the Gulf of Mexico brought to light a number of major problems encountered in safety management in all high-risk sectors. Although these kinds of incidents are extremely unlikely to happen, they have enormous consequences when they do. The fact that they continue to happen is scientific proof that the current theories and practices relating to high-risk activities such as oil and gas exploration, refinery and commercial aviation are insufficient. Recent plans suggest that the causes of incidents should be considered to be both non-linear and non-deterministic.

Read more about the research programme Risk & Design in the TPM Quarterly, Year IX, nr. 1 (March 2011)