The economic recession has hit especially hard the residential building sector in the EU region, e.g., the number of the housing completions has decreased -49% and the total residential output has been squeezed down by -24% between 2007 and 2014 (Euroconstruct, 2015). In turn, the aim of our paper is to suggest a set of radical, novel programmes for developing the national residential building sectors within EU member countries up to 2025. We have applied the framework of strategic niche management (SNM) to the diagnoses of the current portfolios of the innovation, R&D programs in our two member country contexts. In the case of the Northern Finland, the prime example is Hiukkavaara, the largest district to be built in the City of Oulu. Homes will be constructed for 20,000 new residents. Hiukkavaara is a model for climate- conscious design in the northern hemisphere. Energy and materials are conserved, nature is valued and human beings adapt to their environment. One sub-programme involves Future Buildings and Renewable Energy Project. In the case of the Netherlands, the prime example is Energiesprong (Energy Leap), i.e., the innovation programme commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of the Interior. The aim is to make buildings energy-neutral and boost large-scale initiatives. The sub-programmes are targeting homes owned by housing associations, privately owned homes, office buildings, shops and care institutions. This programme is about ensuring new supply by encouraging companies to package a variety of technical sub-solutions, full services and financing options as well as about asking clients to put out tenders and ask for quotes in novel ways, with the government making changes to the rules and the regulations. Experiences on which the Dutch case in this paper focuses are sub-programmes for residential buildings, which include de Stroomversnelling, LALOG and Ons Huis Verdient Het. Based on the emerging Finnish and Dutch evidence, we are suggesting key elements to be incorporated into future national residential programmes within EU member countries on: (1) radical direction with balanced stakeholder groups, trustworthy advocates, contextual goal-setting and barriers management, (2) radical networking with entrepreneurial roles and causal links, novel expertise, transparent choices and digital platforms and (3) radical learning processes to arrive at better informed markets on user preferences, co-innovating, new rules and regulations, higher performance/price ratios, higher quality, new roles and responsibilities assignments.
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Buildings need to be carefully operated and maintained for optimum health, comfort, energy performance, and utility costs. The increasing use of Machine Learning combined with Big Data in the building services sector has shown the potential to bring energy efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Therefore, upskilling and reskilling the current workforce is required to realize new possibilities. In addition, sharing and preserving knowledge are also required for the sustainable growth of professionals and companies. This formed the basis for the Dutch Research Council funded TransAct project. To increase access to education on the job, online learning is experiencing phenomenal growth. A study was conducted with two focus groups - professionals of a building service company and university researchers - to understand the existing challenges and the ways to improve knowledge sharing and upskilling through learning on the job. This study introduced an Enterprise Social Network platform that connects members and may facilitate knowledge sharing. As a community forum, Yammer from office 365 was used. For hosting project files, a SharePoint page was created. For online courses, the company’s online learning site was utilized. The log data from the online tools were analysed, semi-structured interviews and webinars were conducted and feedback was collected with google forms. Incentive models like social recognition and innovative project results were used to motivate the professionals for online activities. This paper distinguishes the impacts of initiatives on the behaviour of university researchers vs company employees.
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Op 20 januari 2022 sprak mr. dr. Bart Wernaart zijn lectorale rede “Building value-based technology together" uit. Aansluitend werd Bart geïnstalleerd als lector Moral Design Strategy binnen Fontys Hogeschool Economie en Communicatie. Op deze website een verslag van alle onderdelen van die dag.
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Whitepaper: The use of AI is on the rise in the financial sector. Utilizing machine learning algorithms to make decisions and predictions based on the available data can be highly valuable. AI offers benefits to both financial service providers and its customers by improving service and reducing costs. Examples of AI use cases in the financial sector are: identity verification in client onboarding, transaction data analysis, fraud detection in claims management, anti-money laundering monitoring, price differentiation in car insurance, automated analysis of legal documents, and the processing of loan applications.
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In the housing market enormous challenges exist for the retrofitting of existing housing in combination with the ambition to realize new environmentally friendly and affordable dwellings. Bio-based building materials offer the possibility to use renewable resources in building and construction. The efficient use of bio-based building materials is desirable due to several potential advantages related to environmental and economic aspects e.g. CO2 fixation and additional value. The potential biodegradability of biomaterials however demands also in-novative solutions to avoid e.g. the use of environmental harmful substances. It is essential to use balanced technological solutions, which consider aspects like service life or technical per-formance as well as environmental aspects. Circular economy and biodiversity also play an im-portant role in these concepts and potential production chains. Other questions arise considering the interaction with other large biomass users e.g. food production. What will be the impact if we use more bio-based building materials with regard to biodiversity and resource availability? Does this create opportunities or risks for the increasing use of bio-based building materials or does intelligent use of biomass in building materials offer the possibility to apply still unused (bio) resources and use them as a carbon sink? Potential routes of intelligent usage of biomass as well as potential risks and disadvantages are highlighted and discussed in relation to resource efficiency and decoupling concept(s).
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This white paper is the result of a research project by Hogeschool Utrecht, Floryn, Researchable, and De Volksbank in the period November 2021-November 2022. The research project was a KIEM project1 granted by the Taskforce for Applied Research SIA. The goal of the research project was to identify the aspects that play a role in the implementation of the explainability of artificial intelligence (AI) systems in the Dutch financial sector. In this white paper, we present a checklist of the aspects that we derived from this research. The checklist contains checkpoints and related questions that need consideration to make explainability-related choices in different stages of the AI lifecycle. The goal of the checklist is to give designers and developers of AI systems a tool to ensure the AI system will give proper and meaningful explanations to each stakeholder.
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The increased adoption of electric vehicles worldwide is largely caused by the uptake of private electric cars. In parallel other segments such as busses, city logistics and taxis, are increasingly becoming electrified. Amsterdam is an interesting case, as the municipality and the taxi sector have signed a voluntary agreement to realise a full electric taxi fleet by 2025. This paper investigates the results of a survey that was distributed amongst 3000 taxi drivers to examine perceptions and attitudes on the municipal charging incentives as well as taxi ride characteristics.
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Het onderwerp van het onderzoek is het zoeken naar een geschikte contractvorm voor scholenbouw. Hierbij worden twee contractvormen vergelijken: het Living Building Concept (LBC) en de Open Oproep.Het LBC wil de bouw laten werken zoals de gewone consumentenmarkt. De expertise en de oplossingen worden gezocht bij de aanbieder en de vrager heeft de keuze heeft uit verschillende concepten. De Open Oproep gaat uit van een professionele opdrachtgever die vanaf het begin voor een goed lopend proces zorgt.De doelstelling was om het LBC en de Open Oproep te vergelijken aan de hand van vijf criteria: maatschappelijke kosten, faalkosten, flexibiliteit, integrale samenwerking en duurzaamheid. Hierbij werd de vraag gesteld hoe beide vormen scoren op de gestelde criteria. Het LBC is aan de hand van literatuur en interviews onderzocht. De Open Oproep is onderzocht aan de handvan de procedure zoals deze in Nederland gebruikt gaat worden, welke is opgesteld door Stichting Scholenbouwmeester Noord Nederland.De belangrijkste conclusies zijn dat het LBC en de Open Oproep veel van elkaar verschillen. Beide vormen hebben een ander uitgangspunt. Het LBC laat de expertise aan de kant van de aanbieder, en wil door marktwerking en concurrentie er voor zorgen dat de aanbieders zich onderscheiden. De Open Oproep probeert het opdrachtgeverschap te professionaliseren door een Schoolschap met expertise de opdrachtgever bij te laten staan.Een ander verschil is de toepassing van de vormen. Het LBC kan bij verschillende projecten worden toegepast, maar er bestaan nog geen partijen die werken volgens het LBC. De Open Oproep richt zich puur op scholenbouw, waardoor de markt voor deze procedure beperkt is. Daarbij is de Open Oproep nog niettoegepast in Nederland en is met het LBC slechts één pilot-project geweest, waardoor zowel het LBC als de Open Oproep niet getoetst kunnen worden aan de hand van praktijkvoorbeelden.Het antwoord op de hoofdvraag: Op welke manier Is het Living Building Concept, binnen de context van nieuwe ontwikkelingen op het gebied van aanbestedingsvormen en verbeterde afstemming van actoren in hetbouwproces een goed alternatief voor een Open Oproep bij scholenbouw?, is samenvattend: Het LBC zoekt de oplossing aan de kant van de aanbieder en de Open Oproep zoekt de oplossing aan de kant van de vrager. Beide vormen zijn goede oplossingen, maar hierdoor scoren ze wel verschillend op de onderzoekscriteria, waarbij de kanttekening geplaatst moet worden dat beide vormen nieuw, in ontwikkeling en nog niet getoetst zijn.Studentenonderzoek in het kader van het thema Duurzaam bouwen.
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The urgency for developing a circular economy is growing, and more and more companies and organisations are concerned with the importance of adapting their business to fit a changing economy. However, many analyses on the circular economy are still rather abstract and there is a lack of understanding about what circularity would mean for specific industries. This insufficient insight especially seems to be apparent in the building and construction sector. Besides, the building and construction sector is responsible for a major part of energy use and emissions. To tackle the issue of insufficient insight into the business consequences of circular developments, further research is necessary. Therefore, we propose to collaborate on a research project that aims to provide a more detailed level of analysis. The goal is to identify drivers and barriers to make better use of materials in the building and construction sector. This further research would benefit from an international collaboration between universities of applied sciences and industry from different European countries. An additional benefit of the applied orientation would be the relevance for professional education programmes. The article is published in the proceedings of the conference : http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/CARPE2019.2019.10582 Publisher Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2019 www.lalibreria.upv.es / Ref.: 6523_01_01_01 Creative Commons Atribution-NonCommercial-NonDetivates-4.0 Int.
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The shortage for ICT personal in the EU is large and expected to increase. The aim of this research is to contribute to a better understanding of the roles and competences needed, so that education curricula can be better aligned to evolving market demand by answering the research question: Which competence gaps do we need to bridge in order to meet the future need for sufficiently qualified personnel in the EU Software sector? In this research, a mixed method approach was executed in twelve European countries, to map the current and future needs for competences in the EU. The analyses shows changes in demand regarding technical skills, e.g. low-code and a stronger focus on soft skills like communication and critical thinking. Besides this, the research showed educational institutes would do well to develop their curricula in a practical way by integration of real live cases and work together with organizations.
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