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Green networks: innovative capacity of sme's in the Dutch Greenhouse Horticulture Industry

The Dutch greenhouse horticulture industry is characterized by world leadership in high-tech innovation. The dynamics of this playing field are innovation in production systems and automation, reduction in energy consumption and sharing limited space. However, international competitive advantage of the industry is under pressure and sustainable growth of individual enterprises is no longer a certainty. The sector's ambition is to innovate better and grow faster than the competition in the rest of the world. Realizing this ambition requires strengthening the knowledge base, stimulating entrepreneurship, innovation (not just technological, but especially business process innovation). It also requires educating and professionalizing people. However, knowledge transfer in this industry is often fragmented and innovation through horizontal and vertical collaboration throughout the value chain is limited. This paper focuses on the question: how can the grower and the supplier in the greenhouse horticulture chain gain competitive advantage through radical product and process innovation. The challenge lies in time- to-market, in customer relationship, in developing new product/market combinations and in innovative entrepreneurship. In this paper an innovation and entrepreneurial educational and research programme is introduced. The programme aims at strengthening multidisciplinary collaboration between enterprise, education and research. Using best practice examples, the paper illustrates how companies can realize growth and improve the innovative capacity of the organization as well as the individual by linking economic and social sustainability. The paper continues to show how participants of the program develop competencies by means of going through a learning cycle of single-loop, double-loop and triple loop learning: reduction of mistakes, change towards new concepts and improvement of the ability to learn. Finally, the paper illustrates the importance of combining enterprise, education and research in regional networks, with examples from the greenhouse horticulture sector. These networks generate economic growth and international competitiveness by acting as business accelerators.

Blockchain-based Common Data Environments to Address Data and Information Fragmentation in The Dutch Construction Industry

In the Dutch construction industry, the demand for advanced information storage and sharing is growing due to the complexity of construction projects. Limitations of traditional methods include lack of transparency and inefficient communication. Blockchain offers a promising solution by enabling decentralized storage and immutable recording of data increasing transparency and efficiency in the construction supply chain. Combining a Common Data Environment with the InterPlanetary File System – decentralized file storage and exchange, and a powerful tool for secure, efficient and reliable data management in construction – can emerge to improve cooperation between parties increasing effectiveness of projects.

Green growth: innovative capacity of sme's in the Dutch Greenhouse Horticulture Industry

The Dutch greenhouse horticultural industry is characterized by world leadership in high-tech innovation. The dynamics of this playing field are innovation in production systems and automation, reduction in energy consumption and sharing limited space. However, international competitive advantage of the industry is under pressure and sustainable growth of individual enterprises is no longer a certainty. The sector's ambition is to innovate better and grow faster than the competition in the rest of the world. Realizing this ambition requires strengthening the knowledge base, stimulating entrepreneurship, innovation (not just technological, but especially business process innovation). It also requires educating and professionalizing people. However, knowledge transfer in this industry is often fragmented and innovation through collaboration takes up a mere 25-30% of the opportunities. The greenhouse horticulture sector is generally characterized by small scale, often family run businesses. Growers often depend on the Dutch auction system for their revenues and suppliers operate mainly independently. Horizontal and vertical collaboration throughout the value chain is limited. This paper focuses on the question: how can the grower and the supplier in the greenhouse horticulture chain gain competitive advantage through radical product and process innovation. The challenge lies in time- to-market, in customer relationship, in developing new product/market combinations and in innovative entrepreneurship. In this paper an innovation and entrepreneurial educational and research programme is introduced. The programme aims at strengthening multidisciplinary collaboration between enterprise, education and research. Using best practice examples, the paper illustrates how companies can realize growth and improve innovative capabilities of the organization as well as the individual by linking economic and social sustainability. The paper continues to show how participants of the programme develop competencies by means of going through a learning cycle of single-loop, double-loop and triple loop learning: reduction of mistakes, change towards new concepts and improvement of the ability to learn. Furthermore, the paper discusses our four-year programme, whose objectives are trying to eliminate interventions that stimulate the innovative capabilities of SME's in this sector and develop instruments that are beneficial to organizations and individual entrepreneurs and help them make the step from vision to action, and from incremental to radical innovation. Finally, the paper illustrates the importance of combining enterprise, education and research in networks with a regional, national and international scope, with examples from the greenhouse horticulture sector. These networks generate economic regional and national growth and international competitiveness by acting as business accelerators.

Towards an 'Amazing Jump': Radical Innovation in the Dutch Greenhouse Horticulture Industry

How can the grower and the supplier in the greenhouse horticulture industry gain competitive advantage through radical innovation? The challenge lies in time- to-market, in customer relationship, in developing new product/market combinations and in innovative entrepreneurship. Realizing this ambition requires strengthening the knowledge base, stimulating innovation, entrepreneurship and education. It also requires professionalizing people. In this paper an innovation and entrepreneurial educational and research programme is introduced. This KITE120-programme aims at strengthening multidisciplinary collaboration between enterprise, education and research. It helps making the step from ambition to action, and from incremental to radical innovation. We call this an 'Amazing Jump'.

Beware of chameleons – chameleons beware

Are Students of Some Disciplines more Involved than Others? Disciplinary Differences in Experienced Research Integration in Higher Education

Overall the research integration in higher education is considered meaningful. It has also been argued that the inclusion of students in research through the curriculum differs between disciplines. Students of ‘hard’ disciplines are supposed to gain more seniority before the research discipline includes them, while students in ‘soft’ disciplines are invited sooner. While previous studies do confirm this trend line, also contradictoryresults have been found. Furthermore, the Biglan Framework (1973) provides more disciplinary differences than the often studied hard/soft divide. Moreover, the notion of involvement in research is more diverse than‘doing research’. Through an online survey this study systematically investigates undergraduate students’ experienced research integration for all study years of seven different faculties (N=2192). The findings indicateconfirmation of the claim that students of different disciplines are included in research at different moments in their educational track. However, this difference is not always based on the hard/soft divide.