The childhood obesity epidemic has persisted for over three decades, which has presented serious social, economic and health consequences worldwide. For researchers and policy makers alike, cycling has been a promising focus over recent years for developing long-term physically active lifestyles in urban environments, in addition to contributing to the global quest to combat climate change. Promoting cycling thus presents a win-win situation not just for individuals' well-being, but for multiple involved sectors such as public health, transport ministry and environmental agencies. For children, cycling promotes exercise engagement, active transport opportunities, motor skill development and social interaction. However, across European cities, there are considerable discrepancies in the uptake of cycling amongst children. To understand and subsequently promote children's cycling behavior, it is crucial that the complex social, physical and policy environment, and their interrelationships, are considered. Therefore, in this perspective article, we adopt the socio-ecological model to gain insight into how children's cycling behavior is shaped at the interpersonal, organizational and community level embedded within city policies, relevant to increase future cycling participation in children. Our perspective is based on a review of cycling policies of two European cities, Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Newcastle (UK), where stark contrasts in children's cycling participation can be observed. Our findings show that cycling policies in Amsterdam have mainly contributed to comprehensive organizational level changes, for example, cycling infrastructure development within the city, whereby these initiatives have made significant progress at the community level where cycling has become part of the “Dutch culture”. Hence, cycling is a more common transportation mode among children in Amsterdam than in Newcastle. In Newcastle, policies primarily focus on organizational or community level changes, and progress has recently been accelerated in response to COVID-19. In addition to differences, we have also identified similar challenges in the two cities, such as the urgency to support uptake of cycling for children with low socio-economic background or challenges related to cultural differences. We also propose a “shared (cycle-)path” for policy makers and researchers as working together is crucial in producing multi-component interventions at a policy level that recognize individual, as well as interpersonal, community and organizational factors.
Aims: The aim of this study is to evaluate the nurses' experiences with the Nursing Crisis Meetings and to identify nurses' needs regarding the future governance structure. Design: Qualitative study. Methods: Two focus groups were conducted in February 2022 with participants of the Nursing Crisis Meetings (N= 15). We used thematic analysis to describe themes. Results: We identified five themes: opportunity to speak up, call for nursing leadership, call for control over practice and autonomy, development of a governance infrastructure and development of the professional nurse role. Conclusion: Nurses experienced the Nursing Crisis Meetings to be a positive and empowering infrastructure, which facilitates the unique opportunity to speak up and share experiences and concerns. This new infrastructure is a promising strategy to engage nurses during a pandemic and to build on a professional governance structure. Impact: This paper highlights the need for nurses to speak up and be engaged during the COVID-19 pandemic and gives a practical example of how to put this infrastructure into practice.
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The focus of this project is on improving the resilience of hospitality Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) by enabling them to take advantage of digitalization tools and data analytics in particular. Hospitality SMEs play an important role in their local community but are vulnerable to shifts in demand. Due to a lack of resources (time, finance, and sometimes knowledge), they do not have sufficient access to data analytics tools that are typically available to larger organizations. The purpose of this project is therefore to develop a prototype infrastructure or ecosystem showcasing how Dutch hospitality SMEs can develop their data analytic capability in such a way that they increase their resilience to shifts in demand. The one year exploration period will be used to assess the feasibility of such an infrastructure and will address technological aspects (e.g. kind of technological platform), process aspects (e.g. prerequisites for collaboration such as confidentiality and safety of data), knowledge aspects (e.g. what knowledge of data analytics do SMEs need and through what medium), and organizational aspects (what kind of cooperation form is necessary and how should it be financed).
Digital transformation has been recognized for its potential to contribute to sustainability goals. It requires companies to develop their Data Analytic Capability (DAC), defined as their ability to collect, manage and analyze data effectively. Despite the governmental efforts to promote digitalization, there seems to be a knowledge gap on how to proceed, with 37% of Dutch SMEs reporting a lack of knowledge, and 33% reporting a lack of support in developing DAC. Participants in the interviews that we organized preparing this proposal indicated a need for guidance on how to develop DAC within their organization given their unique context (e.g. age and experience of the workforce, presence of legacy systems, high daily workload, lack of knowledge of digitalization). While a lot of attention has been given to the technological aspects of DAC, the people, process, and organizational culture aspects are as important, requiring a comprehensive approach and thus a bundling of knowledge from different expertise. Therefore, the objective of this KIEM proposal is to identify organizational enablers and inhibitors of DAC through a series of interviews and case studies, and use these to formulate a preliminary roadmap to DAC. From a structure perspective, the objective of the KIEM proposal will be to explore and solidify the partnership between Breda University of Applied Sciences (BUas), Avans University of Applied Sciences (Avans), Logistics Community Brabant (LCB), van Berkel Logistics BV, Smink Group BV, and iValueImprovement BV. This partnership will be used to develop the preliminary roadmap and pre-test it using action methodology. The action research protocol and preliminary roadmap thereby developed in this KIEM project will form the basis for a subsequent RAAK proposal.
The IMPULS-2020 project DIGIREAL (BUas, 2021) aims to significantly strengthen BUAS’ Research and Development (R&D) on Digital Realities for the benefit of innovation in our sectoral industries. The project will furthermore help BUas to position itself in the emerging innovation ecosystems on Human Interaction, AI and Interactive Technologies. The pandemic has had a tremendous negative impact on BUas industrial sectors of research: Tourism, Leisure and Events, Hospitality and Facility, Built Environment and Logistics. Our partner industries are in great need of innovative responses to the crises. Data, AI combined with Interactive and Immersive Technologies (Games, VR/AR) can provide a partial solution, in line with the key-enabling technologies of the Smart Industry agenda. DIGIREAL builds upon our well-established expertise and capacity in entertainment and serious games and digital media (VR/AR). It furthermore strengthens our initial plans to venture into Data and Applied AI. Digital Realities offer great opportunities for sectoral industry research and innovation, such as experience measurement in Leisure and Hospitality, data-driven decision-making for (sustainable) tourism, geo-data simulations for Logistics and Digital Twins for Spatial Planning. Although BUas already has successful R&D projects in these areas, the synergy can and should significantly be improved. We propose a coherent one-year Impuls funded package to develop (in 2021): 1. A multi-year R&D program on Digital Realities, that leads to, 2. Strategic R&D proposals, in particular a SPRONG/sleuteltechnologie proposal; 3. Partnerships in the regional and national innovation ecosystem, in particular Mind Labs and Data Development Lab (DDL); 4. A shared Digital Realities Lab infrastructure, in particular hardware/software/peopleware for Augmented and Mixed Reality; 5. Leadership, support and operational capacity to achieve and support the above. The proposal presents a work program and management structure, with external partners in an advisory role.
