Usually the whole is the sum of its parts (added linearly): someone is happy and travelling, so happy travelling. Someone walks across a motionless and stable bridge and thus moves forward. But when hundreds of people walk together, the bridge may start to wobble quite suddenly. Both systems - the pedestrian and the bridge - are coupled into one new pattern, in which the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Such discontinuous shifts can be observed everywhere: in horses, the shift from walk to trot to canter (3 patterns); from ice to water to steam. Psychological measures - IQ, emotional stability, planning skills are marginal at best. It is argued that our behaviour is often determined by such dynamic systems.
MULTIFILE
In order to study education and development, researchers can choose among a plethora of methods. The Merriam-Webster dictionary tells us that “method” means: a procedure or process for attaining an object …such as …a systematic procedure, technique, or mode of inquiry employed by or proper to a particular discipline or art “ or “a way, technique, or process of or for doing something”, or “a body of skills or techniques”. Methods proper to the scientific study of education and development cover a very broad range of procedures, ranging from how to formulate and ask questions, how to design studies for answering such questions, how to perform such studies in real-world contexts, how to extract data and how to process them, how to relate processed data to answers on questions, how to communicate such questions and answers, and how to apply them to real world activities aimed at promoting education and development. This body of methods is customarily termed “methodology”, which is a concept that includes the methods themselves but also our understanding of their relationships and their rational and scientific justification. Let us call this body of methods and the justifications “Integrative methodology”. Researchers often tend to see this integrative methodology as a more or less autonomous set of good practice prescriptions. This view is consistent with practices of academic training in which methodology courses are offered separate from courses on disciplinarian contents, e.g. courses on development or educational science. As a consequence of this autonomy oriented view of methodology, scientific questions regarding development and education tend to be framed in terms of the available or habitual methods. For instance, we readily transform or translate concrete questions about the influence of some particular educational intervention in terms of a statistically significant difference between 2 representative samples that systematically differ in only one variable or feature of interest, which, in this case, is the intervention. Almost every word in this translation carries the heavy burden of methodological principles, concepts and presuppositions: “statistically”, “significant”, “difference”, “representative”, “sample”, “systematically”, “variable”, and “intervention”. And all these principles, concepts and presuppositions are taken from this autonomous body of integrative methodology, which forms our indisputable cookbook of good practices, outside of which no good — scientific — practices exist. The answers to questions that are shaped by this independent body of methodology will then contribute to existing theories of development and education. In this sense, it is the (allegedly) independent methodology that informs theory.In this chapter, we will move against this current practice and make the — apparently deeply obvious — claim that it must be theory that informs the questions and the way we shall answer these questions. That is, it must be theory – that is, your body of justified knowledge about a particular phenomenon – that informs, influences and determines methodology, that is, the whole of methods, procedures and instruments that you use to study that phenomenon. . The sort of theory that should inform integrative methodology must be an integrative theory, that is to say a theory consisting of a consistent set of general principles and concepts shaping the domains of inquiry, which in this particular case are the related domains of development and education
DOCUMENT
The concept of the Daily Urban System (DUS) has gained relevance over the past decades as the entity to examine and explain the functionality of the urban landscape. Daily Urban Systems are usually defined and measured by the strength of commuter or shopper flows between the nodes of the system. It is important to realize that these Daily Urban Systems are the accumulated pattern of individuals making frequent, recurring trips to other localities than their own. Understanding the microeconomic decisions behind these spatial interactions will help in assessing the functional and spatial structure of DUS. In this paper is explored how, based on Dutch empirical data, the individual household’s spatial interactions shape the daily urban system and how the destination of these interactions correlates with personal and spatial variables and motives for interaction. The results show that the occurrence of non-local spatial interactions can be explained by the size-based Christallerian hierarchy of the localities of residence, but that it is the regional population – or market potential – that explains and moderates the sorting of households and the intensity and direction of their spatial interactions in the DUS, matching agglomeration theory.
DOCUMENT
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.
Profiel/competentie van een bruggenbouwerBruggenbouwers spelen een cruciale rol bij het bevorderen van samenwerking, innovatie en systeemverandering over organisatorische, disciplinaire en culturele grenzen heen. Dit artikel integreert toonaangevende theoretische inzichten, waaronder Systems Thinking (Jesiek et al., 2018), Social Capital Theory (Putnam, 2000) en Adaptive Leadership (Heifetz, 1994; Zhang & Guo, 2020, 2021), om een omvattend competentiegerichte kader te ontwikkelen. Gebaseerd op empirische bevindingen uit focusgroepen met praktijkprofessionals belicht deze studie essentiële competenties, gegroepeerd in strategische, relationele en adaptieve domeinen. De resultaten tonen significante overeenkomsten en discrepanties tussen theorie en praktijk en bieden concrete aanbevelingen ter versterking van de ontwikkeling en toepassing van competenties van bruggenbouwers binnen organisatorische en educatieve contexten. Door conceptuele en empirische inzichten te overbruggen, draagt dit onderzoek bij aan zowel wetenschappelijke kennis als praktische strategieën om complexe, multidimensionale uitdagingen aan te pakken via grensoverstijgende samenwerking.
De afgelopen twee decennia is er veel meer aandacht ontstaan bij onderzoekers en beleidsmakers voor het begrip co-creatie. Bijna altijd wordt de rol van co-creatie als positief en essentieel gezien in een proces waarin maatschappelijke of publieke uitdagingen worden onderzocht en opgelost (zogenaamde sociale innovatie). Het meeste onderzoek naar deze twee begrippen is kwalitatief van aard en gebaseerd op ‘case studies’.In zijn promotieonderzoek kijkt Peter Broekema naar de rol van co-creatie binnen sociale innovatie in Europese samenwerkingsprojecten. In zijn eerste artikel heeft hij de begrippen co-creatie en sociale innovatie tussen 1995 en 2018 binnen de EU geanalyseerd en geconcludeerd dat beide begrippen steeds breder gebruikt worden en samen met het begrip impact zijn getransformeerd tot een beleidsparadigma.In het tweede artikel keek Peter Broekema hoe beide begrippen doorwerken in specifieke subsidieoproepen en hoe consortia deze begrippen toepassen en samenwerken. Hierbij bleek dat er weliswaar verschillende typen consortia bestaan, maar dat zij geen specifieke co-creatiestrategie hadden.In zijn laatste twee artikelen zal hij gedetailleerd kijken naar een aantal EU projecten en vaststellen hoe de samenwerking is verlopen en hoe tevreden de verschillende partners zijn met het resultaat. Peter Broekema maakt hiervoor gebruik van projecten waarin hij zelf participeert (ACCOMPLISSH, INEDIT en SHIINE).EU beleidsparadigma van sociale innovatie in combinatie met co-creatie en impact. Co-creatie vindt vaak binnen eigen type stakehodlers plaatsAbstractSocial innovation and co-creation are both relatively new concepts, that have been studied by scholars for roughly twenty years and are still heavily contested. The former emerged as a response to the more technologically focused concept of innovation and the latter originally solely described the collaboration of end-users in the development of new products, processes or services. Between 2010-2015, both concepts have been adapted and started to be used more widely by for example EU policymakers in their effort to tackle so called ‘grand societal challenges’. Within this narrative – which could be called co-creation for social innovation, it is almost a prerequisite that partners – especially citizens - from different backgrounds and sectors actively work together towards specific societal challenges. Relevance and aimHowever, the exact contribution of co-creation to social innovation projects is still unclear. Most research on co-creation has been focussing on the involvement of end-users in the development of products, processes and services. In general, scholars conclude that the involvement of end-users is effective and leads to a higher level of customer satisfaction. Only recently, research into the involvement of citizens in social innovation projects has started to emerge. However, the majority of research on co-creation for social innovation has been focusing on collaborations between two types of partners in the quadruple helix (citizens, governments, enterprises and universities). Because of this, it is still unclear what co-creation in social innovation projects with more different type of partners entails exactly. More importantly however, is that most research has been based on national case studies in which partners from different sectors collaborate in a familiar ‘national’ setting. Normally institutional and/or cultural contexts influence co-creation (for example the ‘poldermodel’in the Netherlands or the more confrontational model in France), so by looking at projects in a central EU and different local contexts it becomes clear how context effects co-creation for social innovation.Therefore this project will analyse a number of international co-creation projects that aim for social innovation with different types of stakeholders in a European and multi-stakeholder setting.With this research we will find out what people in different contexts believe is co-creation and social innovation, how this process works in different contexts and how co-creation contributes to social innovation.Research question and - sub questionsThe project will answer the following question: “What is the added value of co-creation in European funded collaboration projects that aim for social innovation?” To answer the main question, the research has been subdivided into four sub questions:1) What is the assumed added value of co-creation for social innovation?2) How is the added value of co-creation for social innovation being expressed ex ante and ex post in EU projects that aim specifically for social innovation by co-creation?3) How do partners and stakeholders envision the co-creation process beforehand and continuously shape this process in EU projects to maximise social innovation?4) How do partners and stakeholders regard the added value of co-creation for social innovation in EU projects that that aim for social innovation?Key conceptsThe research will focus on the interplay between the two main concepts a) co-creation and b) social innovation. For now, we are using the following working definitions:a) co-creation is a non-linear process that involves multiple actors and stakeholders in the ideation, implementation and assessment of products, services, policies and systems with the aim of improving their efficiency and effectiveness, and the satisfaction of those who take part in the process.b) social innovation is the invention, development and implementation of new ideas with the purpose to (immediately) relieve and (eventually) solve social problems, which are in the long run directed at the social inclusion of individuals, groups or communities.It is clear that both definitions are quite opaque, but also distinguish roughly the same phases (ideation/invention, development, implementation and assessment) and also distinguish different levels (products/services, policies and systems). Both concepts will be studied within the policy framework of the EU, in which a specific value to both concepts has been attributed, mostly because policymakers regard co-creation with universities and end-users almost as a prerequisite for social innovation. Based on preliminary research, EU policies seem to define social innovation in close reation with ‘societal impact’, which could defined as: “the long lasting effect of an activity on society, because it is aimed at solving social problems”, and therefore in this specific context social innovation seems to encompasses societal impact. For now, I will use this working definition of social innovation and will closely look at the entanglement with impact in the first outlined paper.MethodologyIn general, I will use a qualitative mixed method approach and grounded theory to answer the main research question (mRQ). In order to better understand the added value of co-creation for social innovation in an EU policy setting, the research will:SubRQ1) start with an analysis of academic literature on co-creation and social impact. This analysis will be followed by and confronted with an analysis of EU policy documents. SubRQ2) use a qualitative data analysis at nineteen EU funded projects to understand how co-creation is envisoned within social innovation projects by using the quintuple helix approach (knowledge flows between partners and stakeholders in an EU setting) and the proposed social innovation journey model. By contrasting the findings from the QDA phase of the project with other research on social innovation we will be able to find arachetypes of social innovation in relation with the (perceived) added value of co-creation within social innovation. SubRQ3) These archetypes will be used to understand the process of co-creation for social innovation by looking closely at behavioural interactions within two social innovation projects. This close examination will be carried out by carrying out interviews with key stakeholders and partners and participant observation.SubRQ4) The archetypes will also be used to understand the perceived added value by looking closely at behavioural interactions within two social innovation projects. This close examination will be carried out by carrying out interviews with key stakeholders and partners and participant observation.ImpactThe project will contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between co-creation and social innovation on different levels:a) Theoretical: the research will analyse the concepts of co-creation and social innovation in relation to each other by looking at the origins of the concepts, the adaptation in different fields and the uptake within EU policies;b) Methodological: a model will be developed to study and understand the non-lineair process of co-creation within social innovation, by focusing on social innovation pathways and social innovation strategies within a quintuple helix setting (i) academia, ii) enterprises and iii) governments that work together to improve iv) society in an v) EU setting);c) Empirical: the project will (for the first time) collect data on behavioural interactions and the satisfaction levels of these interactions between stakeholders and partners in an EU project.d) Societal: the results of the research could be used to optimize the support for social innovation projects and also for the development of specific funding calls.
