Over the past few years, the topic of social safety within Dutch student associations has become increasingly relevant. Since Amnesty International published a report in 2021 revealing that one in ten female students is raped during their time at university, the conversation around sexually transgressive behavior has slowly shifted towards taking the issue more seriously (Driessen & Polet, 2021). Different student-driven initiatives have been launched, including the Studentpact in 2023, and associations started to realize they play a key role in addressing this topic internally (Mariëtte Hamer et al., 2023). However, despite all the growing attention, motivation and awareness, achieving the necessary cultural change remains incredibly complex and difficult.

This thesis explores how Dutch student associations can transition towards a socially safe environment, diving into the complexity of the issue. It considers the core elements that define student culture. Through interviews with students from various backgrounds and roles at two associations in Delft, the impact of social norms and language on social safety within these associations was explored. The results revealed the complexity and multifaceted aspects of the topic. This research did not aim to find a one-size-fits-all solution, because such a solution does not exist. Instead, the goal was to develop a concept that could support, guide, and empower students who are trying to make their association a safer place.

The interview results show that many students struggle with knowing where to begin. While they recognize the need for change, they feel overwhelmed by the complexity and sensitivity of the issue. A lack of understanding, reflection and structure creates a barrier. What is often seen as ‘normal’ behavior within association culture does not always align with what is safe, inclusive or wanted. Because these behaviors are often deeply rooted in traditions, rituals, subcultures, hierarchies and other cultural elements, they are difficult to question, let alone change.

The research revealed many interesting insights that make the complexity of the topic more easy to understand. It showed which factors, elements and conditions play a role in creating a socially safe environment within student culture, like hidden hierarchies and the influence of gender. These insights formed the basis for the final concept, ‘The Recipe for a Socially Safe Association.’ The concept consists of two main elements, a discussion board (‘praatplaat’) and a workbook, that aim to make the topic more accessible and encourage action. The concept is designed to support students in initiating open conversations, developing a shared understanding of social safety within their unique culture, and creating an action plan so they can take the first steps towards positive cultural change within their own association.

Rather than focusing on ready to use rules or policies, the concept centers on reflection and empowerment. It encourages students to work together and critically evaluate their own culture, speak up, and take responsibility for shaping the community they want to be a part of. After all, lasting change doesn't come from the outside; it happens when students feel empowered to take the lead.

The circular economy is increasingly acknowledged worldwide, including in healthcare. It focuses on extending the lifespan and value of products and materials by ensuring their continuous use within the system. This approach is crucial as it shifts away from the prevalent "take-use-dispose" linear model. Given the rapid growth and mounting pressures on healthcare systems, adopting a circular economy is essential to improving sustainability and ensuring broader access to healthcare.

In healthcare, particularly in low-resource settings in Sub-Saharan Africa, circular economy principles can improve access to medical devices and overall healthcare. As the global awareness of health as a fundamental human right grows, there is an increasing push towards universal health access. However, this access is heavily dependent on the availability of medical equipment and qualified medical staff. Unfortunately, medical devices and healthcare technologies are often inaccessible in low-resource settings. Not only does this undermine healthcare delivery, but it sometimes also results in environmental issues, such as the improper disposal of non-functional devices and medical waste, which leads to the loss of valuable materials.

Recent trends in medical device design are shifting from a linear model towards a circular economy approach. This shift aims to ensure that devices are robust, durable, reusable and have an extended lifespan to provide healthcare for all. However, the full implications and complexities of integrating circular economy principles into medical device design in low-resource contexts, is poorly understood. This thesis addresses these through a series of studies focused on designing and implementing medical devices in low-resource settings while incorporating circular economy principles.

The first study is a foundational study which provides a literature review of how circular economy principles have been applied in designing medical devices for low resource settings in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study highlights existing practices such as durability, maintenance, and repair that enhance the longevity of medical devices. However, it also identifies a notable gap in the consideration of refurbishment, re-manufacturing, and recycling in these designs. Building on this, the second study utilises a practical framework to design a medical device from a circular economy perspective, examining the complexities and trade-offs involved. It introduces the Chloe Syringe Extension Device (Chloe SED®), designed to provide pain relief medication during gynaecological procedures in Kenya. The study identifies trade-offs between, on the one hand, material selection, cost price, durability, reprocessing methods and costs, and on the other hand environmental impact, highlighting the need for ongoing assessment to ensure the device remains accessible, affordable, and environmentally sustainable.

The third study assesses the implementation of Chloe SED® in routine care through a large-scale clinical trial. The findings show that the device performs comparably to standard care, integrates well into existing procedures, and has potential to enhance healthcare access. This study highlights the importance of aligning medical device design with local healthcare systems to ensure effective integration and impact. The fourth study explores the designer’s journey in creating and implementing Chloe SED®. This study highlights the diverse roles a designer must assume: collaborator, facilitator, knowledge broker, policy advocate, and entrepreneur, while recognising the need to shift between these roles. The study underscores the iterative nature of the design process and the necessity for ongoing stakeholder engagement to achieve successful adoption and integration of new devices into healthcare systems.

This thesis provides an in-depth analysis of designing and implementing medical devices for low-resource settings in Sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on circular economy principles. It highlights the significance of context-specific design, the challenges of integrating new devices into routine care, and the essential roles of designers in fostering innovation and driving societal change.

Design education plays a crucial role in preparing students for professional practice, equipping them with the right tools to navigate the broadening field and practices of design. However, design education falls short when it comes to supporting design students in their personal-professional journey of becoming a designer.

Design students seem to struggle with articulating what they bring to the table, and knowing what their role can be within the field of design, or beyond. The fast evolving design field demands design practitioners that persist in working with complex (societal) issues and know how they can use their agency. Therefore, they have to stand strong, be resilient, and know how they can contribute with their specific qualities.

Knowing and understanding how these qualities can be of use in as a design practitioner is a powerful tool. However, design education seems to put emphasis on knowledge and skills, rather than discovering those personal qualities. The truth is that design education cannot fully prepare students for the future, since we do not know what it holds. This does not mean that we should miss the opportunity to deliver the best design students that feel empowered and have the agency to reach their full potential as design practitioners.

Therefore, this thesis proposes educational tools that can be used to support students with their personal-professional journey in becoming the desired designer they aspire to be. The tools proposed in this report consist of multiple principles and a video that can guide students in this journey. While the principles helps in discovering students’ unique set of qualities, the video helps them in showing the urgency to work on their personal journey.

By supporting design students in their authentic identity formation, ID education can better prepare students for their professional journeys. By implementing the proposed interventions students can be supported with their transition from novices to competent professionals.

Current literature that aims to describe the use of (Gen)AI in the domain of design is hindered by the lack of conceptual integration of design theories which in turn blurs the connection between the design process and human-AI interaction and collaboration frameworks. This thesis’ objective is to contribute to the conceptual understanding of LLM-based design process augmentation. This thesis shows how such LLM-based design process augmentation can look like by establishing 1) a time-based framework of a human – Augmentation-System collaborative design process, 2) a perspective on the design process augmentation capabilities of LLMs, and 3) an augmentation system architecture and interface for the practical implementation of these theoretical considerations. Other contributions that have enabled these three main contributions include 1) the unification of existing design theories (problem-solution co-evolution, situated Function-Behavior-Structure (FBS) framework, Concept-Knowledge theory, and Uncertainty Driven Action (UDA) model) to attend to a wider range of person-related characteristics required for the description of a collaborative process of design, 2) the connection between human intellect augmentation and creativity literature, resulting in 3) the application of creativity literature in the domain of GenAI and specifically LLMs, and 4) the application of the layers of behavior as described in the UDA (Uncertainty Driven Action) model for the creation of a computational augmentation system. Finally, a reflection on the feasibility and desirability of different forms and applications of augmentation systems is provided. The results of this thesis have created a fundament for further research into the direction of the initial objective, as the results have increased the conceptual power to describe and explain process, output, and other augmentation-related phenomena connected to the domain of human-LLM (or GenAI) co-design.

This graduation project investigates the relationship between care and community and reflects on the possible impact of these learnings on design practice. Care is a complex dimension of life, which entails the act of providing everything that is necessary for the maintenance and repair of the world (Tronto, 1993). From this perspective, we can reframe many of the challenges in our society as challenges of care, and recognize the importance of addressing care outside of traditional (institutional and consumer-based) perspectives.

One of these divergent perspectives is community-based care. There are indications that communities might offer interesting alternatives of care, however, research on community care often focuses on the outcomes for individuals, rather than on the internal dynamics of the community where care is experienced. For this reason, exploring what communities can tell us about the practice of care becomes promising. In this project, I investigate the interaction between care and community, by pursuing a small-scale care intervention in two Dutch central living organisations.

The outcomes of this research reflect that communities offer an unique perspective from which care can be addressed. Care in communities is direct, embraces diversity, evolves constantly and thrives on both structured and spontaneous practices. Interestingly, the relationship between care and community is even deeper, care supports the construction of community. Given its promising qualities to address care, I suggest three ways in which design can support community care: designers can support care within communities, support communities with care, and support care that exercises community values.

Cities have witnessed the disappearance of natural habitats, putting biodiversity at risk and leaving citizens with a diminished connection to nature. Establishing a strong human-nature connection is crucial for sustainable transformations in society, influencing sustainable norms, values, and policy decisions.

Urban Reef, a company specializing in 3D-printed ceramic Reefs, offers a solution to improve urban biodiversity by hosting various living species. These Reefs are considered “living artefacts” as they evolve over time with the colonization of natural species. However, little research has been conducted on the social dimension of such living artefacts and how they can positively impact human users and their connection to nature. To address this knowledge gap, this research aimed to explore how Living Artefacts, like Urban Reef’s Reefs, can help urban citizens feel more connected to nature. The project employed a combination of Research through Design and Co-creative Design approaches to answer this question.

The research commenced with a user study conducted during a family science day, utilizing interactive posters, observations, and the creation of clay seed combs. The results, along with a literature review, revealed a limited connection to and awareness of nature within urban environments. However, the study also demonstrated the potential of engaging with Reefs to enhance nature connectedness. In the subsequent phase, a citizen science study involving five participants caring for and monitoring a Reef showcased improvements in human-nature connectedness. Participants experienced a shift in their perception of nature and developed meaningful bonds with the Reef.

Drawing upon the citizen science findings and an extensive literature review, a comprehensive collection of design guideline cards for living artefact designers was created. The card set encompasses seven pathways to increase nature connectedness through living artefacts: Living Aesthetics, Interactions, Affective Response, Habitabilities, Care & Compassion, Views of Nature, and Ecological Knowledge. These cards serve as a valuable resource for designers, providing diverse approaches to adapt ideas, designs, and prototypes to create living artefacts that foster a stronger connection between urban citizens and the natural environment. Moreover, the cards feature concrete examples of Living Artefacts, offering tangible illustrations to support and inspire designers in their creative process.

Additionally, three concept designs were developed by applying the design cards to Urban Reef’s existing Reefs, serving as illustrative examples of potential outcomes achievable through the utilization of the design guidelines. The thesis project concluded with a user evaluation of the design concepts, followed by recommendations for the future development of Urban Reef. These recommendations aim to guide the market introduction of Reefs in the coming years. The thesis project also provides additional recommendations for further refining the design guidelines.

In summary, this research project highlights the importance of fostering a human-nature connection in urban environments. Through the exploration of Living Artefacts, such as Urban Reef’s Reefs, and the development of design guideline cards, this project offers insights and tools for designers to create living artefacts that enhance nature connectedness among urban citizens.

This master's thesis collaborates with the Netherlands Red Cross (NLRC) and their Water and Innovation team. The aim of the team is to foster greater engagement with local communities and establish a power balance that empowers the partnering country, rather than being centralized in the NLRC's headquarters in The Hague.

The core of the research project is the design of a storytelling book that adopts a fairytale tone to facilitate ease of reading, engagement, and inspiration. The book incorporates captivating visualizations to narrate the stories of Akila, a Mozambican girl living in Beira, and the Red Cross volunteers during disaster relief efforts.

This design is created through extensive research. The study identifies significant challenges within the NLRC, highlighting the need for substantial transformations in work methodologies. Specifically, the structure of projects must be reoriented to prioritize the active involvement of local communities. The challenges analyzed in this thesis include organizational alignment, global knowledge transfer, and local engagement.

To address these challenges, the project adopts a comprehensive five-phase approach. The initial phase involves a digital visit to Mozambique, conducting extensive research across five domains to gain a deep understanding of the context. The second phase focuses on developing an academic foundation by exploring topics such as climate injustice and climate change. The third phase encompasses in-depth interviews with a multitude of organizations both within and outside the field. Subsequently, it reconvenes to synthesize the gathered information into an engaging design specifically tailored for the NLRC. The fourth phase involves defining and refining the design concept, including testing the book and formulating an implementation strategy.

The book's target audience includes experienced and new Red Cross employees, direct project partners of the NLRC (e.g., Deltares), indirect partners (e.g., the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), and organizations encountering similar challenges (e.g., Doctors Without Borders). Furthermore, with adaptations in text, language, and visualization, the book holds the potential for integration into the NLRC's existing school packages.

Currently, theWater and Innovation Unit aims to expand the organization's expertise across various phases of the disaster risk management cycle. While historically focused on the response and recovery phases, the NLRC's project in Beira signifies a transition toward involvement in the mitigation and preparation phases as well.

The extensive network of organizations and companies affiliated with the NLRC offers a significant opportunity for sustained expansion. To promote a shift of control to the partnering countries, it becomes essential to establish a network that incorporates local organizations. This necessitates the acquisition of localized knowledge to effectively engage with the NLRC, thus fostering a comprehensive understanding of the specific contexts. The primary future role of the NLRC encompasses not only financial support but also the refinement of programs, enhanced program impact, and facilitation of network expansion. Consequently, the NLRC assumes the role of a facilitator in the realm of disaster risk management, where decisions are governed by the partnering country. Acknowledging the existing power imbalance, the transition to this stage will undoubtedly demand a substantial investment of time and effort.

The production of denim harms the environment, and given the industry’s size, the negative impact is significant. Therefore, denim must be produced more sustainably. In order to bring about change in the industry, an increase in demand for eco-friendly jeans is necessary to incentivise investments in sustainable production methods. Here, low-cost clothing brands and retailers can play a crucial role. With their substantial share in the denim industry and their connection to consumers, they have the ability to grow demand through effective Sustainability Communication. Unfortunately, their efforts currently overwhelm and confuse consumers, consequently damaging consumers’ green buying intentions. Therefore, this thesis, in collaboration with House of Denim, a non-profit striving for a more sustainable denim industry, investigates how low-cost brands and retailers can adapt their Sustainability Communication to ultimately increase the popularity of sustainable jeans.

To find a solution, this thesis examines the inter-organisational relations in the current system for SC, the brand's and retailers’ experience of the system and future notions by means of interviews and a literature study.

The investigation of the current system uncovered the multifaceted complexity that causes the SC shortcomings of low-budget brands and retailers. The inter-organisational challenges that contribute to this complexity are the indefinite and incomplete means of authorities that fall short in offering the industry constructive guidance. In addition, internal challenges from brands and retailers contribute to the complexity as their commercial strategy is in conflict with sustainability efforts; they operate individually and end up discouraged. On top of that, the competitive nature of the fashion industry, driven by seasonality, and fast-changing trends on low price points makes it challenging for low-cost brands and retailers to prioritise sustainable efforts.
Nevertheless, upcoming European legislation and showcasing eco-efforts to consumers are the predominant motivators for these businesses to invest in sustainable practices.

To overcome the complexity, brands and retailers must collaborate to level the playing field for SC towards consumers. Therefore, the final design is a proposal for a Dutch Denim Coalition. It presents the vision in a storytelling poster, suggests a strategy to build the coalition and offers dialogue starters. The coalition unites brands and retailers and connects them with knowledge and experts. The goal is to encourage managers from brands and retailers to adopt the same principles for sustainable denim and collectively work on improving the current system for SC.

This thesis highlights the fundamental issues that hinder the change of these low-cost clothing brands and retailers. It emphasises the significance of involving non-sustainable brands and retailers in sustainability discussions, as they represent a large part of the denim market and cannot be ignored. Hence, the design suggests a new direction for House of Denim which revives and enlarges the impact of their resources with a more inclusive view of the denim industry. Ultimately, it brings them one step closer to their vision; a Brighter Blue.

With nearly 70% of people living in cities by 2050 (United Nations, 2018), our urban environments are being put to the test, with more severe and frequent heat waves, droughts, floods, ongoing biodiversity loss, air pollution, and land subsidence. To sustain and increase the liveability and climate resilience of cities, the design and implementation of urban green infrastructure, with the urban forest as its backbone, is one of the most critical solutions (Spronken-Smith & Oke, 1998; Rosenzweig et al., 2015; Norton et al., 2015). However, the current indifference that runs through the veins of the anthropocentric political, economic, and socio-technical systems limits the urban forest from being a central part of the built environment.

As an attempt to put urban trees on the political agenda, the USDA Forest Service developed and launched the i-Tree software in 2006 to quantify the ecosystem services provided by urban trees (Nowak, 2020). In 2019, the first version became applicable to the Netherlands. This project is part of the three-year-long follow-up, i-Tree 2.0-NL, consisting of a consortium of 28 stakeholders to further elaborate the cooling performance, model growth curves, and synchronise the potential of the software for the stakeholders. This thesis concerns the latter.

The project starts with an understanding of the overarching transitions, exploring the direction in which the urban green domain should (and currently is) heading to calibrate the compass for change (see Figure 1). The newly proposed paradigm illustrates five societal shifts in how we relate to, integrate, account for, collaborate for and provide access to the urban forest. The ideal is to reposition the urban forest as critical infrastructure. The project is moving towards mapping the current system and processes of the consortium stakeholders, localising the role of the public green sector in urbanisation and discovering interrelationships. The different domains are strategically separated and examined in isolation to explore opportunities for integrating i-Tree into architectural, municipal and nursery processes. From this set of five opportunity areas, the concept of a management dashboard was selected for further development with the aim of linking municipal green space policy and green space management.

The ‘Urban Forest Portfolio’ is created, evolving the use of i-Tree from static assessments to a dynamic portfolio. The dashboard aims to integrate the urban forest lifecycle into planning, management and design, to track progress towards the realisation of long-term quantified targets, and to enable scenario evaluation for just compensation.

The integration of the proposition into the system is discussed, leading to eight concrete new practices and six speculations on a system scale, one of which is the establishment of the ‘Rijksgroenstaat’. Finally, the principles behind these new practices helped to make the new paradigm tangible, operationalise the transitions and bring into focus the parts specific to the domain of this project.

The project aims to discover the systemic granularity of the urban green domain, oscillating between abstract paradigms, concrete practice, and levels in between. A systemic strategy developed side by side with the stakeholders in the green sector.

The International Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, ‘The Movement’, is the world’s largest humanitarian network. More than 50% of the 14 million active volunteers are youth volunteers. These youth volunteers play vital roles in humanitarian action and development around the world by addressing needs in their communities. To develop the potential of these youth volunteers and enhance their collective impact, The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) launched an IFRC Youth Innovation Academy: Limitless. Limitless offers youth volunteers a theoretical introduction to the design process and financial support for the development of their ideas. Applying for the programme starts with the introduction of a COVID-19 related problem, followed by a number of workshops to guide projects of the youth volunteers.

This thesis examines whether the design of the Limitless program matched its aim of fostering humanitarian innovation, and based on the research conducted it presents a new human-centered curriculum design to foster innovation through a strong focus on problem framing. This bridges the gap between the (currently unanswered) human perspective and the incentive to facilitate innovation from within the IFRC.

From extensive literature and empirical research it can be concluded that the current programme lacks multiple components necessary for successful facilitation of innovation. Foremost, the initial challenges presented by the youth volunteers were often found to be too broad and ill-defined, therefore making it difficult to come up with a solution within the scope of the programme. Resulting from these initial findings, thorough research on how to facilitate innovation was carried out. Based on this a set of design guidelines and barriers for innovation was formulated. These guidelines formed the starting point of the concept design.

The design phase explored how a strategically designed solution can complement the currently missing components of the Limitless programme. An overarching platform is proposed, which aims to stimulate interaction between multiple stakeholders and creates more growth potential for the youth volunteers’ projects. The first module within the action-oriented curriculum presented via the platform emphasizes
problem framing. A deeper dive into theory and practice around this resulted in a novel workshop format for which a back-end flowchart and a front-end digital prototype were developed. The concept was iterated upon multiple times, in order to create a format that best meets the needs of the youth volunteers. Validation with youth volunteers suggests that the novel workshop does indeed improve the ability to create a well-framed problem statement.

This research contributes to the IFRC’s ambition to support young innovators in their innovation journey. It also highlights more generally how humanitarian innovation can be improved and how growth potential can be designed. For future implementation and further development of the curriculum, a selection of recommendations is presented.

This thesis aims to find a new collection method for post-consumer denim garments that fits the future context and the needs of ecosystem stakeholders. The thesis is aimed at all who want to work on a circular fashion industry from a business- or ecosystem perspective. The design solution is aimed at brands and retailers.

In a circular economy, denim is recycled at the end-of-life. To scale up recycling, collecting needs scaling up. Now municipalities grant the right to collect garments to collectors. They use textiles containers. The profitability of this business model is decreasing and many garments still end up in the trash.

Stakeholders in the denim industry were interviewed about the barriers, drivers and ideal situation for collecting or working with post-consumer (recycled) denim. The most critical barriers stakeholders mentioned are: clothing is treated as a waste stream; the company’s scale is too small for impact; (fast) fashion is counteractive to circularity; financial barriers; a lack of transparency in the ecosystem; needing to convince consumers to hand in clothes; and uncertainties around legislation. The most important drivers they mentioned are: legislation (the Extended Producer Responsibility) leads to action; financial incentives (from legislation); more attention for sustainability; and growing consumer enthusiasm for sustainability. Consumers often value attributes like a comfortable fit over sustainability when buying garments. There is a need to educate the consumer on topics like handing in clothes. For an ideal situation, industry stakeholders mentioned: collaboration between stakeholders; sustainability is profitable; brands and retailers take care of different steps in the value chain; more transparency. They also asked: should the future be local or global; and should we create closed loops within a brand or the industry? Trends that impact the ecosystem are trends in logistics and legislation.

Brands and retailers will be impacted by the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and will bear responsibility for collecting garments at the end-of-life. Therefore, the design challenge is to facilitate the collection of worn denim for brands and retailers. The thesis studied the case of De Rode Winkel to learn more about jeans collection in stores. This gave insight into the volume composition of the collected jeans. The retailer kept some of the jeans, which led to a decrease in revenue for the sorter. A different approach to the business model was needed. Therefore, the design challenge was redefined to develop the business case of collection as a service.

In the final design, Textiles2Textiles offers collection as a service (CaaS) to denim brands and retailers. The consumer hands in their garment at a store and receives a discount. The service, called the Collecting Collective, takes care of educating the consumer; providing retailers and brands with the means to collect; and sorting the garments and sending them to the right step in the value chain. The service can exist in a system without and with the EPR. At first, the service will be only for denim garments, but will later extend to the collection of all garments.

Cities are in an urgent need to adapt to the impacts of climate change, particularly, high temperatures and heat stress. Urban Forests are the most effective means of climate adaptation. However, the multiple benefits of urban trees are highly undervalued in the urban contexts. This project focuses on positioning urban trees as effective agents in improving the overall liveability of cities. The premise of the project lies in the fuzzy front end of the innovation process where the i-Tree technology is being redeveloped for its effective adoption in Netherlands. The goal of the project is to synchronize the technical potential of i-Tree as a tool and communicate the benefits of trees to multiple stakeholders in the process.

The overall design direction aims to address these problems through a series of interventions across the system of urban forestry. The concept introduces a public awareness campaign to bridge the knowledge gap between citizens and other stakeholders. The campaign is proposed to stretch over a duration of 10-11 months with several touchpoints along the way for citizens to get enthusiastic about the idea of maintaining and taking care of urban trees. The touchpoints aim to target events like Dutch Design week, Boomfeestdag (Tree Festival) and Springsnow festival. To make the awareness program desirable and interesting. A podcast series and a guide is developed called “How to befriend a Tree?”. A concept for the i-Tree Eco tool is proposed which communicates tree benefits in a way that is comprehensible by all the citizens. All the touch points lead the audience of the campaign to the digital platform of i-Tree Netherlands which helps people become caretakers of trees easily.

The explosion in e-commerce has been undeniable. Our current global situation has urged the different industries to adapt the way they provide their services & products, creating a higher demand for home delivery. With 66% of Europeans claiming to have shopped online more since the initial lockdown in March 2020 and 82% planning to shop online at the same level or more post lockdown (Samat, 2014), online shopping will remain in the consumption behaviour of potential customers. Even if consumers considered receiving their packages at their home or decided to pick them up, some other concerns may arise with this new way of purchasing, especially with the packaging system and the further waste disposal issues that the Netherlands has been facing. The high demand for packaging material and the tight supply of waste paper are pushing up cardboard prices (Velden & Stooker, 2021). Thus, there is an inconsistency in the collection of material for repurposing, leading to an increase in the price of recycled material [ + 214% in May 2021 (TMR, 2021)] and leaving the use of virgin material as a better alternative to meet the demand for cardboard. With a market estimated to be valued at ~US$ 237 billion by the end of 2019 and anticipated to reach ~US$ 333 billion by 2027 (TMR, 2021), wood pulp became a relevant subject of analysis in this project. Without a proper strategy to ensure collection and prevent the material from being contaminated, the packaging sector will be forced to bring new virgin material into the chain, which may affect our natural resources in the medium term. This thesis aimed to identify the potential points where paper-based packaging may become waste. Therefore, a systemic design approach is used to identify the different actors. Then, a strategic solution allows them to set shared needs & impacts and collaborate towards the proposed goal. As a result, a program that incorporates logistic providers, packaging producers and waste collectors was created. Moots (from the Mayan word that means “roots”) puts the waste collection system closer to the consumer and, in this way, successfully recover, measure, and repurpose waste paper and cardboard. It also evolves the role of the waste collectors where they became a facilitator to enhance collaboration, goal development, implementation, and measurement of objectives with the final aim of reducing the idea of waste.

Public organisations are shifting their focus towards the implementation of sustainability into their projects through sustainable public procurement, but recent studies indicated that the implementation is still lacking. Sustainable public procurement is only implemented in around 10% of the Dutch public procurement tenders (Yu et al. 2020). One of the reasons for the lack of implementation is the added complexity to the job of the procurement specialist. MVI platform helps these procurement specialists by guiding them through this complex task. During their work they found out that a lot of potential positive impact is lost at the start of a project. The most potential for impact is found in the civil construction sector, due to the size of its projects. Because of this potential, the graduation project is aimed at stimulating sustainable public procurement for civil construction projects. This graduation project focusses on the design of an intervention at the early stages of a project in order to start creating more positive social and environmental impact. This is done through the design of practices that support a pragmatic and collaborative approach. During these practices, a mix of vision, management and execution stakeholders come together to share ideas, discuss and prioritize in order to decide which role sustainability should play within the project. The community of practice theory and boundary object theory as well as the SDG procurement compass from MVI platform were used to give shape to the practices. During the graduation project, two practices were created in the form of online workshops. The first workshop focussed on the definition of sustainable ambitions within the project. During the second workshop, the participants formulated measurable goals and made a list of actions and key stakeholders. The workshops were tested during multiple case studies, and iterations on the workshops were made based on the received feedback. After iterations, the early stage intervention, also called SDG impact kick-off, is designed to be a set of three workshops. The ambitions -, actions -, and stakeholders workshop. Although it was not possible to measure the actual impact of the workshops on the projects that were used as case studies, the feedback and results from the workshop seemed promising. The workshops clarified how sustainability could be implemented and helped to create a concrete implementation plan. A plan that helps project leaders with integrating sustainability and helps procurement specialist with setting up sustainable public procurement procedures. All in all, these collaborative practices are believed to aid in the creation of more positive sustainable impact in construction projects. The workshops of the SDG impact kick-off form a beginning of a practice that makes sustainability an integral part of any project.

For organisations, the capability to exploit data for innovation efforts has already become imperative to their survival in an ever more competitive market. However, many organisations are currently still struggling with how, where and when to use data science for innovative purposes. The consulting industry is a significant driver for the development of such knowledge for organisations. In addition, in the past decades, consultants have adopted design thinking as a practice to support client's innovation efforts. The digital consultant firm (DCF) provides professional services to connect the enterprises' business strategy with implementation across digital fields, including design innovation and data science. Based on initial research, the collaboration between data scientists and designers is found to be an issue. This is problematic, considering the importance of data for their enterprise client's innovation efforts. Is the DCF able to achieve synergy between data science and its current design innovation approach, or is polarity simple to large? This thesis aims to explore and design practical support for digital consulting firms to integrate data science in their current design innovation approach. This is done by answering two research questions: (1) how can digital consulting firms integrate data science in design innovation? (2) how can this data-design integration be facilitated in digital consulting firms? To answer these questions, a design science research approach in the information systems is taken. Based on empirical research, including two collaborative workshops between the DCF's data scientist and designers, two significant findings are drafted. First, data-informed design is a viable opportunity for the DCF to use data science in design innovation client projects. However, a lack of cross-functional learning and a lack of cross-functional decision-making constrain the DCF from exploiting this opportunity. In addition to integrating the two teams, this results in missed revenue and a risk of high overhead costs. The firm is argued to facilitate the data-design integration by using a person-to-person knowledge strategy to tackle this challenge. The firm should institutionalise an internal alignment meeting before proposals are shared with the client. This meeting aims to support the data and design team's decision-makers with drafting viable proposals, increase the number of collaborative projects. In addition, a framework for interdisciplinary decision making is designed to support the person-to-person knowledge transfer to the decision-makers. Using a newly proposed method, job prototyping, a new role in the organisation is iteratively developed together with employees. The final concept is validation during an actual internal alignment meeting with the DCF's data and design decision-makers and a potential job-holder. The firm should create a new position in the organisation, 'the data design lead'. This person serves as a hinge between the two teams and aims to transfer his knowledge by acting as a sparring partner during the internal alignment meeting. In addition, a set of guidelines are designed to increase the impact of this new role on the data-design integration. The research findings provide a strategic and viable direction for digital consulting firms to facilitate data science integration in their design innovation process.

In the current moment in time, there are large societal transitions happening, such as the transition to sustainable energy or the transition towards a circular economy. Design-led transitions are societal transitions towards more sustainable futures, led by designers (Irwin, 2015). These transitions help us to move towards a more sustainable future for organizations, and are there- fore something largely all companies would want to participate in to accelerate this. In this increasingly complex, dynamic and networked world (Dorst, 2015), companies cannot solve these large-scale societal issues alone.Therefore, in order to accelerate the transition, it is vital for companies to work together, as the challenges of today cannot be solved by companies by itself. One of the ways in which companies can collaborate is in ecosystems, which has increasing interest of scholars and practitioners. Specifically, this project focuses on transition ecosystems, a specific type of ecosystem focusing on accelerating transitions. In transition ecosystems, companies build multilateral partnerships that need to interact with the shared goal to help accelerate transitions. These ecosystems are first explored by parties and then formed before they work towards the transition. The forming phase of ecosystems is a critical phase, since during this phase a lot of tensions and complications arise, which need to be taken into account in order to have a succesful ecosystem formation. These tensions occur, because within forming an ecosystem there is a gap between the organisational perspective and the ecosystem perspective Organisations want to participate in the transition in order to stay relevant, but might feel threatened or vulnerable by having other parties present. If actors can move towards an ecosystem perspective, they are able to find new collaborations. In order to be able to see their possible new roles and co-create possible futures in the ecosystem, they need to release their concern about current threats and competitiveness. In order to get these parties out of their current role, a dialogue is needed between actors striving to form an ecosystem. This project included a design approach to understand how designing ecosystems can accelerate transitions. For this research, 15 interviews are conducted (13 initial interviews and two follow-up interviews for validation).These interviews informed the designer, to design a toolkit to bridge the gap between the organizational and ecosystem perspective in transition ecosystems. The Value Network toolkit designed in this project aims to bridge the gap between the organisational and ecosystem perspective. It aims to do so by allowing organisations to think free of the constructs of the current situation, see their organisation in a new role and see the value of the ecosystem . The toolkit is aimed at strategic designers facilitating the forming phase of an ecosystem. In the value network toolkit, three tools were developed to facilitate discussions to relieve tensions. The three tools were validated and tested using both expert interviews and a test case, and based on this iterations were made. 
The project concludes with a critical reflection and relates back to existing literature.

The goal of this project was to find a way to improve digital well-being in family life through design for the startup Unpluq. In this thesis, the designer combined a design approach called Value Sensitive Design with the list of requirements methodology taught at Industrial Design Engineering. This resulted in a new methodology that allowed the designer to develop a concrete list of requirements and wishes for improving well-being through design. To establish this list of requirements, the design student performed a detailed literature review on positive psychology, behavioural economics and digital parenting literature. In addition to this, he interviewed both parents and children to empathise with their world views. Lastly, he performed a market analysis to understand how the context and available resources could affect Unpluq’s capacity to take up a role in this new market. Based on this research, the answer found is that improving digital well-being in the family life requires the design of a choice architecture that helps parents and children take more conscious control of their time and attention (both transactional values). Doing so should allow them to spend these transactional values on activities that align with things they intrinsically value. This choice architecture should help rearrange actors, artefacts, and stimuli within the family home environment so that time is less easily spent without intentional consent. Based on this list of requirements, the design student initiated a design process to translate these insights into a physical design concept that Unpluq could bring to the market to help families rearrange this choice architecture. This design process was executed by iteratively evaluating design concepts with both the client, potential end-users, experts, and professionals from different psychology and pedagogics fields. In the end, the designer delivered a concept that stimulates reflective thinking about what users find intrinsically valuable and provides tips, tools and challenges that push them to try and change habits. This is done by focusing on conversations that help raise awareness of the critical issues and stimulating the iterative goal setting that the family should engage in to start solving these issues for themselves. The way that time can and should be allocated for intrinsically valued activities was so unique for each individual and family that it is hard to find one solution to help everyone. Therefore, the core insight of this project for Unpluq is that if they would be interested in entering this market, their focus should be on helping families reimagine the way they use their environments within their own family homes. This should be done both individually and together through reflection and iteration and supported in that journey by scientific and expert information.

This graduation project aims to change the way people look towards self-development, and make self-development a norm in society so that people will be leading more meaningful and fulfilling lives. The School of Life Amsterdam is an organisation that aligned with this personal vision for society with their mission of helping people get more fulfilment out of their lives. For The School this project was an opportunity to expand their target group. A strategic design process was used to design a vision and strategy for The School of Life Amsterdam. First, research was performed in three directions. 1. Self-development: Why is it important and what are obstacles in doing self-development? 2. The School of Life Amsterdam: What are their strengths and weaknesses, which opportunities can be identified? 3. (Potential) customers: Who are they and what do they think about self-development and The School of Life Amsterdam? The research was analysed and used to create a vision for The School of Life Amsterdam: Growth as a shared responsibility of both The School of Life Amsterdam and its customers. For The School, that means business and impact growth, and for the consumers, it means personal growth. The strategy is built on the research's insights, especially the appeal of The School has to customers, and the self-help paradox, meaning that people need to do self-development to realize the value of self-development. The strategy aims to make self-development a norm in society by using The School’s community, people who are already into self-development. The community members will be provided with the knowledge and tools to interact with people who are not yet aware of the value or doing self-development. The interactions will be based on ‘We-development’: Self-development as a means to create deeper and more meaningful connections. With more people doing self-development, the School of Life Amsterdam's market will expand. A roadmap with three phases was created to implement the strategy in the organisation. Finally, further recommendations for the project are that The School of Life Amsterdam creates a clear definition of fulfilment to measure its impact on customers. Next, the strategy’s value and impact needs to be evaluated during execution. And lastly, further research needs to be done on community building.

The daily consumption of food influences the health of society and the planet. The current food consumption of an average Dutch consumer could be described as unsustainable behaviour (Muilwijk et al., 2019). Especially the intake of animal proteins should decrease and be replaced with plant proteins to realise a positive impact (Kramer & Blonk, 2015). However, the consumer is not the only responsible stakeholder for this, because food processors, foodservice operators and retailers shape the market and influence consumers’ dietary choices (European union, 2020). In other words, the consumption system influences the consumer. Therefore a transition of the system is required to realise sustainable food consumption. This thesis applies a system perspective to explore essential actors and identify barriers and triggers for the transition (Loorbach et al., 2017). The system is locked in the feedback loop of demand and supply and the consumer strongly influences the demand side of the system. A change in demand means a change in consumer behaviour. Behaviour is influenced by a complex interplay of factors and to change the system a bottom-up strategy is applied. This requires a context-specific case to change the consumption system (McKenzie-Mohr,2011). In conclusion, the focus of this project is to design an intervention which supports consumers to replace animal proteins with plant proteins when ordering food. The consumer journey emphasises the importance of the right choice in order to change behaviour and purchase differently. Due to unconscious routine behaviour, the consumer needs support in the decision process. Personalised triggers and simplification of the consumption process supports the desired behaviour and could lead to a new habit of consuming sustainable food (Eyal, 2014). A concept is designed to match personalised meal suggestions with consumer preferences. Additionally, actionable support is provided to ease the choice between different forms of food delivery. The goal of the concept is to offer personalised inspiration, actionable support and accessible education for the consumer and the foodservice stakeholders to realise sustainable food consumption. The concept operates according to a platform business model where multiple stakeholders are included to add value. The added value for every stakeholder is validated with several expert interviews and online consumer discussions. The platform is self-learning and uses consumer data to advise the foodservice actors about anticipation of consumer needs. The translation of consumer data into valuable insights for the industry generates a viable revenue model. The key business activities are the data analysis and the matchmaking between consumers and meals. The implementation of the concept is explained according to a roadmap and indicates a strategy for entering the market. The concept is positioned as an honest and truthful platform that serves and supports stakeholders in their sustainable consumption behaviour. This creates a competitive advantage compared to other delivery platforms. The concept covers all SHIFT factors to encourage sustainable food consumption and therefore owns the potential to change consumer behaviour (White, 2014). A change in consumer behaviour results in new consumer demand. The change will affect the supply side of the feedback loop and contributes to the transition of the consumption system.

This project is about inclusion in the museum sector. Concerns around inclusion and equality are rapidly increasing. And, due to these societal dynamics, museums are in times of fundamental change towards inclusivity.

At the start of the project, a theoretic framework depicting the different layers and elements of inclusion was developed. This knowledge helped to gather rich contextual insights in the research phase of the project; exploring inclusivity from the museum sector’s perspective and the visitors’ perspective. As a result, three key challenges and opportunities from the sectors’ perspective, and the key visitors’ needs, were identified. From synthesising these findings, it was found that the key opportunity and challenge for the project lay in addressing the relationship between museums and the public: to help move towards a mutual symbiotic relationship, where both parties are able to benefit from.

Based on this challenge brainstorming, experimentation, and observations were done to iteratively develop a strategic service concept. The final concept that evolved was Habitat. To put it briefly: Habitat is a digital museum platform that gives small pieces of context and sparking questions related to art pieces, to support visitors’ curiosity and line of thinking. And, it allows visitors to leave their own ideas, thoughts, or opinion on augmented sticky notes. Habitat’s ultimate contribution to inclusion is that it, on the one hand, helps visitors to become active participants, and allows them to see what art can do and mean to them, without needing to be an art-expert. And, on the other hand, it helps museums to better understand their visitors, tap better into their (inclusive) needs, and facilitate the space to build a mutually beneficial relationship the public.

In validation tests with museum visitors, the concept’s desirability was investigated. In parallel, expert evaluations were performed. The insights from these activities combined were used to formulate the final recommendations. Here advice is being given on how to answer the following questions, related to the desirability, feasibility and viability: ‘Can it be done?’, ‘Does it bring value?’, and ‘Can it be sufficiently supported?’. The project was primarily centred around the Dutch museum sector. However, input was also gathered from international sources and the project aims to be as inspirational and scalable as possible for cultural experiences and organisations, in and beyond the Dutch cultural landscape.

Finally, what this thesis in particular advocates for, when designing for inclusion, is to focus on finding out what people might have in common and what connects them. In terms of defining peoples’ needs, designers should not focus on separating groups of people to fit simplified personas, instead they should look out to find universal needs shared among all. This will help to recognize common grounds on which inclusion can be built. Besides that, this thesis advocates to adopt a system thinking mindset when designing for inclusion. Doing so will help to understand the interactions between the actors in the system, the environment around them, and to see who gets excluded, why, and how.