Innovations are required in urban infrastructures due to the pressing needs for mitigating climate change and prevent resource depletion. In order to address the slow pace of innovation in urban systems, this paper analyses factors involved in attempts to introduce novel sanitary systems. Today new requirements are important: sanitary systems should have an optimal energy/climate performance, with recovery of resources, and with fewer emissions. Anaerobic digestion has been suggested as an alternative to current aerobic waste water treatment processes. This paper presents an overview of attempts to introduce novel anaerobic sanitation systems for domestic sanitation. The paper identifies main factors that contributed to a premature termination of such attempts. Especially smaller scale anaerobic sanitation systems will probably not be able to compete economically with traditional sewage treatment. However, anaerobic treatment has various advantages for mitigating climate change, removing persistent chemicals, and for the transition to a circular economy. The paper concludes that loss avoidance, both in the sewage system and in the waste water treatment plants, should play a key role in determining experiments that could lead to a transition in sanitation. http://dx.doi.org/10.13044/j.sdewes.d6.0214 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karel-mulder-163aa96/
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Innovating physical products can be seen as systems engineering at a higher abstraction level. It spans multiple domains and focuses not on developing the product, but realising the complete innovation. In our new approach, we focus on the four most important domains of physical product innovation: market, technology, production and business. Technology Innovation Processes (TIP) is a newly developed, flexible and pragmatic data-informed decision approach that helps innovation managers to navigate through the early stages of a blue-ocean innovation process, where not much is known.
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While the concept of Responsible Innovation is increasingly common among researchers and policy makers, it is still unknown what it means in a business context. This study aims to identify which aspects of Responsible Innovation are conceptually similar and dissimilar from social- and sustainable innovation. Our conceptual analysis is based on literature reviews of responsible-, social-, and sustainable innovation. The insights obtained are used for conceptualising Responsible Innovation in a business context. The main conclusion is that Responsible Innovation differs from social- and sustainable innovation as it: (1) also considers possible detrimental implications of innovation, (2) includes a mechanism for responding to uncertainties associated with innovation and (3) achieves a democratic governance of the innovation. However, achieving the latter will not be realistic in a business context. The results of this study are relevant for researchers, managers and policy makers who are interested in responsible innovation in the business context.
The European creative visual industry is undergoing rapid technological development, demanding solid initiatives to maintain a competitive position in the marketplace. AVENUE, a pan-European network of Centres of Vocational Excellence, addresses this need through a collaboration of five independent significant ecosystems, each with a smart specialisation. AVENUE will conduct qualified industry-relevant research to assess, analyse, and conclude on the immediate need for professional training and educational development. The primary objective of AVENUE is to present opportunities for immediate professional and vocational training, while innovating teaching and learning methods in formal education, to empower students and professionals in content creation, entrepreneurship, and innovation, while supporting sustainability and healthy working environments. AVENUE will result in a systematised upgrade of workforce to address the demand for new skills arising from rapid technological development. Additionally, it will transform the formal education within the five participating VETs, making them able to transition from traditional artistic education to delivering skills, mindsets and technological competencies demanded by a commercial market. AVENUE facilitates mobility, networking and introduces a wide range of training formats that enable effective training within and across the five ecosystems. A significant portion of the online training is Open Access, allowing professionals from across Europe to upgrade their skills in various processes and disciplines. The result of AVENUE will be a deep-rooted partnership between five strong ecosystems, collaborating to elevate the European industry. More than 2000 professionals, employees, students, and young talents will benefit from relevant and immediate upgrading of competencies and skills, ensuring that the five European ecosystems remain at the forefront of innovation and competitiveness in the creative visual industry.
This project develops a European network for transdisciplinary innovation in artistic engagement as a catalyst for societal transformation, focusing on immersive art. It responds to the professionals in the field’s call for research into immersive art’s unique capacity to ‘move’ people through its multisensory, technosocial qualities towards collective change. The project brings together experts leading state-of-the-art research and practice in related fields with an aim to develop trajectories for artistic, methodological, and conceptual innovation for societal transformation. The nascent field of immersive art, including its potential impact on society, has been identified as a priority research area on all local-to-EU levels, but often suffers from the common (mis)perception as being technological spectacle prioritising entertainment values. Many practitioners create immersive art to enable novel forms of creative engagement to address societal issues and enact change, but have difficulty gaining recognition and support for this endeavour. A critical challenge is the lack of knowledge about how their predominantly sensuous and aesthetic experience actually lead to collective change, which remains unrecognised in the current systems of impact evaluation predicated on quantitative analysis. Recent psychological insights on awe as a profoundly transformative emotion signals a possibility to address this challenge, offering a new way to make sense of the transformational effect of directly interacting with such affective qualities of immersive art. In parallel, there is a renewed interest in the practice of cultural mediation, which brings together different stakeholders to facilitate negotiation towards collective change in diverse domains of civic life, often through creative engagements. Our project forms strategic grounds for transdisciplinary research at the intersection between these two developments. We bring together experts in immersive art, psychology, cultural mediation, digital humanities, and design across Europe to explore: How can awe-experiences be enacted in immersive art and be extended towards societal transformation?
The BECEE initiative represents a transformative collaboration between four leading European HEIs—Hanze University of Applied Sciences (HUAS), Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), South East Technological University (SETU), and Universiteti "Aleksandër Moisiu" Durrës (UAMD). Our consortium embodies the essence of BECEE and the EIT Knowledge Triangle Model because it also comprises of 4 industry partners (KPN, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, Innofuse, Zurich, Switzerland, Dungarvan Enterprise Centre, South East, Ireland, and Linda Laboratory, Durrës, Albania) bringing together partners from education, research, and business who are equally committed to collaborate on innovation action plans to fostering balanced collaborative entrepreneurship ecosystems in our respective regions. This consortium, therefore, is strategically designed to pool diverse strengths, creating a synergetic force for innovation and entrepreneurship that transcends the capabilities of any single organisation.
