Extreme weather events such as heat waves and heavy rainfall are becoming more frequent due to climate change, threatening the liveability of urban environments. High building and infrastructure densities and impervious surfaces intensify heat and flood risks. This vulnerability has led to an increase in climate adaptation strategies, which often include the implementation of Nature based Solutions (NbS). In the Netherlands, one of the most widely used NbS is the swale, a green ditch that facilitates drainage, infiltration, and rainwater storage. Swales are seen as cost-effective and no-regret measures that, just as other NbS, can have multiple functions which provide multiple benefits. Despite these potential benefits, practitioners struggle with the design, development and maintenance of swales, partly due to limited local monitoring practices.

The research had two main objectives: (1) to explore current practice in research and in Dutch municipalities to identify performance criteria and monitoring techniques for swales to track the key functions of swales, and (2) to investigate motivators and challenges for municipal swale monitoring and develop a communication tool to address these.
A systematic literature review identified five key swale functions: water quantity, water quality, biodiversity, liveability and wellbeing. Water quantity and water quality functions are relatively well studied, with swales proven to reduce runoff and remove certain pollutants when properly designed and maintained. However, research is still lacking for the functions biodiversity, liveability, and wellbeing. The connections between the different functions were also explored, which showed the importance of recognising the connections and the influences of the different functions on each other. From this review, eight criteria were identified: infiltration rate, soil moisture, in- and outflow of pollutants, soil quality, vegetation development, temperature, resident experience and resident usage. For each criterion, quick-scan and in-depth monitoring techniques were proposed.

A survey among municipal workers who are involved with urban water management (mainly from South Holland) found that swales are seen as multifunctional objects, where water quantity and biodiversity are the most important functions. Monitoring is not part of the current practice, and swales are often only assessed on the functions during the design. However, there is interest in the implementation of monitoring, especially for water quantity and water quality. The main motivators for monitoring are to know the effect of swales on the long term and the ability to identify problems in time. The main challenges are keeping track of data and ensuring sufficient resources, like staff and budget.

To overcome these challenges, a workshop was designed to motivate practitioners to start monitoring the multiple swale functions. The workshop is aimed at municipal staff responsible for the organisation of maintenance for the different functions. By learning about the different functions and monitoring possibilities, the participants can create a monitoring plan that serves as a starting point for the actual implementation of monitoring. Evaluation by experts indicated that this workshop can motivate the target audience, because it increases the audience's awareness of swales, encourages them to consider the different functions and lets them practice with measuring, monitoring and retrieving data. It also provides them with a concrete and practical output that can be used in practice.

This study offers a framework to improve swale monitoring in the Netherlands. An overview of performance criteria with corresponding monitoring techniques is provided together with a communication tool that can bridge the gap between knowledge and practice.

The ferry industry encounters growing initiatives in creating environmentally friendly and efficient travel solutions. As urban areas are expanding, efficiently employing waterways is getting more attractive for government bodies wanting to tackle issues such as overcrowded city-living space, traffic congestion and connectivity to rural areas. In firms it is also being recognized that environmental and social impact should be considered to create durable and responsible business models. Connecting business models to industry innovation and sustainability creates a high level of complexity and strategic potential for business development. Therefore, the aim of this thesis was to investigate and drive the connection between water transit systems and sustainable business model innovation and leverage it for highly innovative sustainable initiatives.

The Double Diamond design method was used to structure the project. The first phases, Discover and Define, covered an empirical case study at Damen Shipyards. The second phases, Develop and Deliver, included the design phase. The case was the Waterbus fleet that at the time of this thesis, was operational in the Rotterdam-Drechtsteden area for public transportation. The Waterbus was built and owned by Damen Shipyards and operated by Aqualiner. Within the water transit system, the operation faced business model challenges. The existing water transit business model was investigated and a tool for driving sustainable innovation of it was developed: the Pyramid Toolkit. The generalized toolkit contains a pyramid-shaped model, innovation cards, and a co-creation method for organizations wanting to create an innovation strategy for deploying or developing a water transit system. The Pyramid Toolkit was applied at Damen Shipyards, which yielded the Waterbus Strategy, containing recommendations to overcome the current challenges.

The thesis makes the following theoretical contributions. Firstly, it explains the complexity of the water transit system client structure and how it influences (financial) responsibility within the stakeholder network. Secondly, the profit formula of water transit systems was investigated. Income that is dependent on route design, ship passenger capacity, fare structure and subsidies must together cover total costs, which include maintenance and operating costs, capital investments in the ships, and potential penalties from the government. Thirdly, water transit systems are inherently sustainable. However, regulations and subsidies are essential to reduce cost barriers. Lastly, the shipyard can take a leading role in the maritime sustainability transition, as it has the advantage of technological knowledge and capabilities for building and financing hybrid and electric vessels.

Practically, this thesis contributes to the ferry industry with a tool for systemic, holistic overview of water transit business models. It provides a structure to analyze current practice and strategy. The Pyramid Toolkit highlights sustainability as a fundamental part of water transit systems – how it is present, how it can be introduced, what difficulties arise, and how it can be improved or leveraged for stakeholders. Furthermore, the Pyramid Toolkit, as a methodological model, can be crossed over to other industries with adaptations. Lastly, the Double Diamond process, design strategies, gigamapping, visualizations, participatory design and design roadmapping in this thesis are contributions to strategic product design theory and practice.

This thesis involves the development and testing of an educational tool named ”Playlist,” aimed at improving the learning experience of Computer Science & Engineering bachelor students at the TU Delft. The Playlist tool was developed as a feature for the existing tool called Skill Circuits, supporting students in creating personalized sequences of learning activities for their study sessions. This research contributes to the complexities of modern digital learning environments and the challenges students face in navigating vast amounts of educational content.

This report holds the full description of the integrated thesis. The first part including the chapters of ”Fostering a personal sequence of learning activities in Skill Circuits”.
The study uses a design-based research approach, which involves iterative development and research cycles and including students in the evaluation phases. By drawing on educational theories and addressing practical needs identified at TU Delft, the Playlist tool was designed to seamlessly integrate into the existing learning environment. The tool’s functionalities were prioritized based on user feedback provided by Computer Science students and gathered through surveys and focus group sessions.

Key findings indicate that playlists can improve student engagement, motivation, and overall learning experience by supporting students in finding learning activities aligned with their learning preferences and goals. The research highlights the importance of providing students with tools that improve navigating the learning environment and support them in self-directed learning. The Playlist feature not only aids students in organizing their learning activities but also promotes a holistic approach to education by incorporating supporting activities such as reflection and taking breaks.

The integrated thesis hopes to demonstrate the potential and importance of designing tools to personalize learning and support students in achieving their learning goals. It also explains why personalization tools in higher education should be implemented in an iterative manner.

This report holds a subset of an integrated thesis involving the development and testing of an educational tool named ”Playlist,” aimed at improving the learning experience of Computer Science & Engineering bachelor students at the TU Delft. The Playlist tool was developed as a feature for the existing tool called Skill Circuits, supporting students in creating personalized sequences of learning activities for their study sessions. The integrated research contributes to the complexities of modern digital learning environments and the challenges students face in navigating vast amounts of educational content.  The study uses a design-based research approach, which involves iterative development and research cycles and including students in the evaluation phases. This report focuses on the description and design of these phases. For each phase, it then reports on how the design of the Playlist tool utilized user feedback gathered through surveys and focus group sessions with Computer Science students.  Key findings in the integrated thesis indicate that playlists can improve student engagement, motivation, and overall learning experience by supporting students in finding learning activities aligned with their learning preferences and goals. The research highlights the importance of providing students with tools that improve navigating the learning environment and support them in self-directed learning. The Playlist feature not only aids students in organizing their learning activities but also promotes a holistic approach to education by incorporating supporting activities such as reflection and taking breaks.  The integrated thesis makes two contributions: it serves as an example of the design and implementation of personalization tools in higher education and provides insights into integrating such tools into an existing educational system. The thesis aims to demonstrate the potential of designing tools in an iterative manner to personalize learning and support students in achieving their learning goals.

The objective of this thesis was to bridge the gap between the municipality of The Hague and the residents with lower digital proficiency, by answering the main research question: How can less digitally proficient residents be included in resident research?

stadskamer & inclusive resident research
his project was carried out in collaboration with the municipality of The Hague, specifically The Stadskamer. The Stadskamer is part of the municipality-wide expertise centre of the Innovation and Services team. Here, residents can provide feedback and share ideas about municipal services, actively participating in their improvement. The Stadskamer uses resident research to examine how the municipality can improve its services. They believe in the potential of inclusive resident research: this type of research focuses on reaching and involving residents who are usually underrepresented in resident research.

The Stadskamer works hard towards inclusive resident research, yet the reality is still different. Many groups have not yet been involved in research, preventing (policy) decisions from being made that align with reality.

Context
One of the underrepresented groups were residents with lower digital proficiency. This group was not very visible for the Stadskamer and they had little means to effectively involve them in resident research. Their current research strategy was not working. There is also a dearth of literature specifically addressing the needs of digitally less proficient residents. This research therefore focused on bridging the gap between existing literature and practice and design a strategy-based intervention for the municipality to contribute to a better and more inclusive approach to resident research.

Approach
In order to design the intervention, I conducted literature- and desk research, and I embarked on an exploratory journey to discover the best strategic approach. I used experiential learning as a central methodology. It consists of four stages: experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting. This approach aligns well with the needs of conducting inclusive research, as it emphasizes learning from direct experiences and observing the actions and consequences of others.

Design results
The final design concept is the strategy for involving less digitally proficient residents in resident research, including research tools, presented in the form of a handbook. This handbook provides all the practical guidelines needed to successfully conduct research with less digitally proficient residents. The strategy consists of five building blocks, each representing a step in the process of including the target group in research. These include identifying, reaching, approaching and involving less digitally proficient residents, and providing feedback.

Conclusion
Applying this strategy, showed that it is feasible, viable and desirable. It can be concluded that the final design successfully provides the Stadskamer with a strategic approach that facilitates the inclusion of digitally less proficient residents in the resident research.

This thesis also contributes to the field of science and design as it validates and generates knowledge that is directly applicable. The findings provide a basis for the development of more effective municipal policies and address the gap in existing literature by providing specific information on conducting research with this target group.

Gender stereotypical beliefs play a role in everyone’s life, whether people impose personal and subjective norms on themselves, or judge others based on these existing beliefs. Gender stereotypes present a limited and inaccurate representation of reality’s complexity and have the ability to evoke pain and backlash. The goal of this master’s graduation project was to increase awareness about gender stereotypes and the thereof deriving effects on people. This project is part of a double degree program, in which the masters ‘Design for Interaction’ and ‘Communication Design for Innovation’ are combined. This meant that the objective was applied in two contexts with both a specific target group, namely Dutch high school students (aged 15 to 18) and academic professionals working within the TU Delft.

Through a non-systematic literature research further understanding of gender stereotypes and the resulting impact on people was achieved. In modern western society, gender is generally viewed from a binary perspective. But gender isn’t a category with only two variables. The interpretation of gender is socially constructed, and can differ per culture and can change overtime. Gender stereotypes are learned from a young age, children as old as 18 months will start to comprehend them. This goes to show that gender stereotypes play an influential role during a large part of people’s lives. It also indicated that gender stereotypical beliefs are deeply rooted and unconscious, which makes challenging them harder.

Additional to literature research, empirical research activities were performed. These existed of a mini experiment in which eight participants were asked about concepts related to gender, three interviews with academic professionals and an exploration of currently available informative media for teenagers. The conclusions drawn from these empirical research efforts are as follows. When aiming to increase awareness, it does help to encounter multiple perspectives on gender and gender stereotypes. Additionally, it is beneficial to be able to communicate with others about the matter. The created design concepts aim to do just that and should provide the target groups with guidance in the process of increasing awareness about gender stereotypes.

In the context of high school students, the design concept created is a teaching method. In five classroom sessions teenagers are brought in contact with different perspectives on gender, can have conversations about the topic with peers and are guided in reflection. Between the lessons the students work on an individual assignment. To support the teenagers in their learning efforts, different teaching materials were created. These are for example games, a quiz, worksheets and subject inspiration-cards. For the academic professionals a dialogue intervention was designed. During a ten step process these professionals are guided in sharing a personal experience related to gender stereotypes. The aim is to establish conversation amongst each other about these stories. The steps of the process were based on a conversation with a dialogue expert, the method of appreciative inquiry and a three-step model from awareness to action. Based on initial evaluation both design concepts seem to be promising in achieving their objectives. Further testing could help to get an even better understanding of the usefulness of both concepts and could lead to design iterations.

This research is a case study investigating the effect of participation in the development process of a network-based scientist-journalist recommender system on the mental model of digital innovation of a team of communication professionals from Delft University of Technology and Naturalis Biodiversity Center.

Communication professionals at research institutes are tasked with connecting scientists and journalists. The recommender system supports this process by recommending scientist-journalist connections based on data from previous collaborations. A scientist collaboration network, a journalist collaboration network and a scientist-journalist collaboration network are combined into a multilayer network. A recommender system is designed based on centrality metrics in the scientist and journalist collaboration networks and distance metrics in the multilayer network. In contrast to traditional link prediction problems - which aim to predict what links are most likely to form in the network - the problem in this thesis is how to recommend the most likely link for a single node, i.e. the most likely scientist links for a given journalist or most likely journalist links for a given scientist. A novel evaluation method is created to evaluate the performance of the recommender system.

The development of this system is used as a vessel to research how participation in a digital development process affects the mental model of digital innovation. This research contributes to addressing the lack of understanding of how to develop a mental model that facilitates innovation in the context of digital transformation. Three themes were identified in their mental model change: The extent to which innovation requires involvement, the complexity of innovation processes and what outcomes can realistically be expected of a digital innovation process. The team went from a model of digital innovation as 'a mysterious black box' - something external, where they could hand in a list of requirements and walk away with a digital tool - to a 'super puppy' that can do remarkable things, but has to be trained and interacted with to get a desired effect.

A recent study in The Netherlands, reports an expected shortage of 140,000 healthcare employees by 2031. Two main reasons for this shortage are an increased demand for healthcare and a shortage on the healthcare labour market. The irregular shifts and unconventional working hours make nurses quit their profession or refrain others from applying. This thesis explores the effect of scheduling decisions on job satisfaction of nurses in Dutch hospitals. Applying mathematical optimization, we examine if nurse satisfaction can be improved and at what cost. Incorporating results from interviews and a survey, this thesis presents a formulation of the nurse scheduling problem including both capacity coverage and nurse satisfaction in the problem’s objective. The problem is solved using an exact (mixed integer programming) approach and a heuristic based on a Variable Neighbourhood Search approach. Using benchmark instances for the nurse scheduling problem, results show that nurse satisfaction can be improved at no cost of capacity coverage. Since these results are based on only simulated preferences, the thesis ends with some suggestions for further research.

A shift in academia is taking place, from individual excellence towards more collaboration. Where autonomy and individuality are highly valued by scientists and the systems in which they operate, a push towards more collaboration in the scientific field in the Netherlands is inevitable. Scientific issues are becoming increasingly complex and demand a wide range of expertise and methodology in order to be solved. This necessitates not only collaboration, it requires far-reaching integration and leads to inevitable interdependency within the collaboration. To be successful, one needs to combine the knowledge available within multiple disciplines to create a solution together. In these collaborations, team learning behaviour becomes a necessary collaborative effort in order to work together effectively.
In this research, team learning behaviour in multidisciplinary academic teams at the TU Delft is investigated. It focusses on integrated multidisciplinary collaborations, which include inter- or transdisciplinary collaborations and everything in between. The goal of this research is to come up with an idea that could help stimulate team learning behaviour.
Through a non-systematic literature review, an extensive overview of factors that have an influence on team learning behaviour and their underlying relations is made. The factors are categorised as learning boosters and learning drainers. A diagram is used to show the complexity and interconnectedness of the influence factors on team learning behaviour. From this overview, a section was chosen to focus on, the antecedent factors. This is the section with which the TU Delft could most effectively influence the team learning behaviour of its academic integrated multidisciplinary collaborations.
Through semi-structured interviews, issues were identified with the current team learning behaviour within these collaborations. These issues turned out to be spread out over three different levels. Some issues can be addressed within collaborations. Some issues are broader than a collaboration and can only be solvable within the organisation, in the TU Delft. A few issues present themself more in the whole academic field. These issues might not be solvable by the TU Delft, but they might be able to contribute.
Three main themes were identified to be in the way of the collaborative effort of learning behaviour:
• Low prioritisation of collaborative work due to the pull to individualistic work. This issue presented itself within the collaboration, the organisation, and the academic field.
• Non-efficient collaboration activities. Within the collaboration, this is partly due to implicit communication. This results in scientists often having to spend their personal time on collaboration efforts, which could be tackled on the organisation level.
• Few integrated multidisciplinary collaboration opportunities. In the organisation this is mainly visible in job and education opportunities given by inherently monodisciplinary faculties. In the wider academic field, this shows itself in fewer publication opportunities.
As the result of this research, a toolset has been developed to help stimulate learning behaviour. The tools facilitates a session with people who can influence either a collaboration, the organisation or the academic field to find solutions to issues raised. The output of this session are concrete goals and action points to carry out.

This interdisciplinary thesis gives a simulational approach for the production of basic chemicals in a renewable manner, while simultaneously managing uncertainty inherent in the development of novel and innovative technologies. The simulational approach focuses on the capture of CO2 and subsequent conversion into methanol using Aspen Plus. CO2 is captured by chemical absorption into MEA. The CO2 rich stream is mixed with hydrogen and converted into methanol. The flowsheet is finalized by integrating recycle streams and upgrading of the product. The e-Refinery institute is used as a case study in order to research the managing of uncertainty in the development of these innovative technologies. The concept shared vision is the focus point in the collaboration and a conceptual design of a virtual platform has been developed in order to aid in the development of a shared vision within interdisciplinary research institutes.

Many nutrition education programmes currently face issues with implementation at schools. Little is known about causes for these issues. Research has shown that implementation of innovations like nutrition education programmes is influenced by adoption which in turn is affected by a multitude of determinants. The first objective of this thesis was to investigate the adoption of nutrition education programmes at primary schools and the association with implementation dose. The second objective was to create a tool to support the adoption of Taste Lessons. School-based nutrition education programmes are regarded as educational innovations in this thesis. An innovation is defined in this thesis as a novel, inventive and useable solutions related to people’s needs. In this context adoption is defined as the process which starts from the moment the teacher hears about the programme until the decision is made whether to use it. The number lessons implemented by the teachers is referred to as the implementation dose in this thesis. To reach the first objective, the adoption of Taste Lessons, EU-Schoolfruit and school-based nutrition education programmes in general, was evaluated. Data analyses were performed to investigate the association of the score on adoption determinants with implementation dose of Taste Lessons. Multilevel analyses were performed to compare the changes in intended programme outcomes over time between implementation dose categories. To reach the second objective, a Delphi study was performed to gain insight into the key stakeholders’ needs in the adoption process of Taste Lessons. In addition to these insights, literature and expert consults were used to develop a tool. This tool aims to support the adoption of Taste Lessons. Twenty-eight determinants important for adoption have been established. Several determinants that could be barriers for the adoption of Taste Lessons and EU-Schoolfruit have been identified. Significant positive associations have been found between implementation dose and the number of support staff, awareness of the programme’s contents, descriptive and subjective norm, and correctness of the programme. A significant negative association has been found with the teacher experiencing support from professionals. The implementation dose was significant positively associated with change in children’s nutrition knowledge. No significant association of the implementation dose with change of children’s fruit and vegetable consumption was found. Based on the above mentioned results in combination with the results from second part of the thesis a tool to support the adoption of Taste Lessons was developed. The digital tool should show teachers how they can tailor the programme to their needs, inform them about the contents, effectiveness and substation of the programme, and stimulate them to take action for implementation. The take home message of this research is that adoption determinants are associated with implementation dose, which in turn, is associated with the programme’s effectiveness. Context specific strategies for support of the adoption phase in the dissemination of nutrition education programmes should be developed, of which the tool developed in this research is an example. The strategy should be based on literature and practice, to ensure the feasibility, desirability and viability.

Our world is becoming increasingly more digital, but its security has not catched up yet. Therefore, cyber security is becoming ever more important and needs to be improved. This improvement can be made by increasing collaboration and knowledge exchange. A Community of Practice (CoP) is a concept often deemed an appropriate tool to manage knowledge within organizations and between knowledge partners. A better understanding on how to create and implement CoPs for cyber security-related topics could further improve cyber security. This research aims to achieve two objectives. The first objective is to gain insights in the establishment of Communities of Practice on cyber security in order to contribute the current scientific literature. The second is to use these insights to provide a possible solution to create a Community of Practice on cyber security for the FERM case in the Rotterdam port area.

This report contains the results of the two thesis studies that finalise a combined MSc--programs of Reservoir Geology and Science Communication. The first part of the report comprises the multi-scale data (kilometers to meters scale) analysis of a) the large--scale architecture of the subsurface Daly Waters Arch which was obtained from seismic data interpretation; and b) fracture pattern characterisation by outcrop measurements and drone imagery in the Tomkinson Province. Both the Daly Waters Arch and the Tomkinson Province are located in the largely undeformed Palaeo-- to Meso--Proterozoic Greater McArthur Basin in the Northern Territory, Australia. In July 2019, a geological fieldwork was conducted in the Tomkinson Province to collect the fracture data with the drone. In this research, the Daly Waters Arch and the Tomkinson Province have been geologically linked based on seismic and fracture data. By discussing analog cases of far-field deformation, these results have been placed in a larger context of large--scale basin deformation.

The second part of the report focuses on the Netherlands, where ambitious goals have been set for the implementation of geothermal energy in the energy transition. During the gas production in Groningen, a negative social perspective towards mining operations, in general, was developed. For the implementation of geothermal energy, an approach for the communication of technical uncertainties between the initiators and the local public of a geothermal project is designed in this study. Technical uncertainties that are present in geothermal energy implementation in the Netherlands have been identified during semi-structured expert-interviews with different stakeholders in the spectrum of geothermal energy. The approach addresses guidelines for the communication of the context, the goal, the technical uncertainties present in the geothermal project, the main communicating actors, their reference frames, and the situation in which the communication process takes place.

When in 2008 the financial crisis set it in Europe, consequences for the healthcare systems were inevitable (Parmar, Stavropoulou, & Ioannidis, 2016). Health budgets were reduced, and since the beginning of the crisis, 1.5 million additional people in Europe have had an unmet need for healthcare (A. Reeves, McKee, & Stuckler, 2015). A key challenge is both to achieve and to maintain the quality of healthcare, including new technologies within constrained budgets (Godman et al., 2016). This puts facilities such as hospitals in a difficult position. They are required to balance the contradictory and competing demands of efficiency and specialization, low operating costs and high-end amenities, minimized capital costs and optimum clinical quality (Clough et al., 2011). Innovation is a key concept in healthcare, because innovation engineering and management allow for more efficient development of better concepts of medical devices (Lamé, Yannou, & Cluzel, 2018). This is essential for sustainable healthcare systems in the future (Ellner et al., 2015). In this light, there has been an increased interest in the Living Lab concept (Bergvall-Kåreborn, Eriksson, Ståhlbröst, & Svensson, 2009). In a Living Lab, multiple relevant stakeholders work together in a real life setting. Despite the growing recognition and use of Living Labs throughout society, literature on this phenomenon remains scarce (Dell’Era & Landoni, 2014). The Living Lab method is relatively new, and Living Lab participants are rarely entrepreneurs. The result tends to be an unclear Living Lab structure with little focus on management. A consequence is that the overall structure, activities and vision are not always clear. Due to these unclarities, management might take more time than necessary. Creating structure in Living Lab collaborations can save participants lots of time and frustration. It is crucial however, to maintain the free and open way of collaborating, which is characteristic for Living Labs. The key in finding the sweet spot between working like a community and a bureaucracy might be systematically tracking of involved Living Lab stakeholders. Much of the Living Lab structure and organization will be dependent on local circumstances. And that is both the strength and the curse of the Living Lab. But, being able to systematically track your stakeholders, their responsibilities and contributions by the means of a protocol could save many Living Labs a lot of time and unpleasant surprises.

The living lab methodology is an approach to realise the innovation process by bringing together users, technology and business for collective ideation in a real-life environment. This study looked into the human level of the boundary-spanning activities within a living lab group via a case study on a university living lab of medical devices. This research aimed to provide insights on the interpersonal interaction to optimise the mutual learning between participants of a university living lab. The results of this research were translated into a communication tool to realise the optimal mutual learning within a living lab context. This research found out that the identification process played an important role in facilitating users to obtain benefits of the boundary-spanning activities while mitigating the possibility of conflicts. In the process of dynamic formation of professional identity in a living lab context, various identities of competence come closer and intersect with each other. The supervenient overlapping area of different competence can be regarded as the identity of knowledgeability. Knowledgeability manifests the ability to see the relevance of other competence to a professional’s own competence. Translated into practice in the design process of medical devices, the identity of competence provides a feasibility scope of expertise, which makes sure the design decision would be viable in the future commercialisation according to a certain aspect. Actors with knowledgeability to all the expertise in a group can better tweak the decision into the overlapping area of all the feasibility scopes of expertise, for example, of clinical, engineering and commercial expertise in this case. This research suggests that knowledgeability could be an indicator of so-called boundary-spanning competence. Knowledgeability is the result of identification in the interdisciplinary interaction within a living lab context. When designing a tool to facilitate the acquisition of knowledgeability, this study utilised the three modes of identification, namely imagination, engagement and alignment as the foundation of the tool. The tool stimulates reflection of the users through a series of inspiring questions and guides the users to reap the benefits of daily interdisciplinary conversations through communicative solutions. The main recommendations for future research entail taking this preliminary tool as a starting point to explore the cognitive activities further when people engage in boundary-spanning activities and the psychological aspect of the identification process. Furthermore, defining the quantitative criteria of knowledgeability would greatly improve the reliability and usefulness of the tool.

The Netherlands has a strong tradition of blueprint planning in spatial design. Since the financial crisis of 2008, a shift has been made to more organic approaches to development. Currently, a paradigm is evolving which is able to deal with complex challenges that the built environment faces today: a shortage of housing and a transition to sustainable energy. Industrial area Schieoevers Noord, situated in Delft, is developed with the rationale of this new paradigm: directing into the direction of a mixed-use and densified city district, yet with an open end. Since the Municipality of Delft does not own land in the 75 hectares large district, interdependencies exist between the municipality, project developers, and the current users: industrial companies. The problem statement of this research project: how to plan for sustainable energy supply (heat and cold supply) in a complex context characterised by interdependencies. The concept of adaptivity has been explored as a potential strategy to implement in a process of sustainable energy planning, resulting in the design of a five-step approach: the Schieoevers Noord approach for adaptive energy planning. Six characteristics of adaptive processes have been found based on a literature review. Three of these turned out to be absent in current approaches for sustainable energy planning: a way to explicitly incorporate uncertainties (unpredictability and interdependency) in planning, mechanisms for iteration, and the creation of conditions for development (rather than planning actual developments). The latter has been intensively studied by investigating heat and cold balances in different building scenarios (densities and function mixes), concluding in the need to shape conditions for development in Schieoevers Noord, by the proposal of energy-based design guidelines, ensuring energy-neutral developments, no matter the building volume or mix of building functions.

The development of research evaluation frameworks sparked a focus on research impact. Therefore, this study explores the concept of research impact, looking at its various interpretations, and possible indicators and enablers. Finally, a design proposal for an impact mapping tool is made, to give scientists more awareness of the impact of their research.

Flooding currently affects 100 million people on average per year globally, and the number is increasing. The performance of dikes under extreme conditions is crucial to societal flood protection. By deploying measurement instruments in and around the embankment, more accurate insights into the actual status of the dike can be achieved that can be used to prevent the failure of a dike.
Despite growing awareness of the potential of dike monitoring techniques and effort put into the development and testing of instruments, implementation of instrumental dike monitoring into regular practice remains scarce. The objective of this thesis is therefore to shed light on the factors that influence the implementation of innovation in dike monitoring practice by: (1) assessing and analysing the barriers and drivers for implementation of innovation in dike monitoring, by studying a case study of novel optic fibre pressure sensors and trying to influence this practice by (2) designing a communication oriented intervention for the development phase that enhances the implementation process.

Building with Nature (BwN) is a relatively novel way of thinking for flood protection. Unlike traditional flood protection solutions that are poised to bring forces of nature to a halt, the BwN’s philosophy is to use natural dynamic processes for engineering advantage as a protection against natural disasters and events. Yet, the BwN design philosophy faces obstacles in terms of technical efficacy and evaluating added benefits when compared to traditional flood defence solutions.

This research sets out to understand how these obstacles faced by the BwN design philosophy play a role in the consideration of a BwN flood defence solution during project development. This is done by relating the assessment of the added benefits to five discussion fields, namely Costs, Function, Policy, Responsibility and Support. In doing so it can be determined which discussion fields play an important part in embracing a BwN design based on its added benefits while considering its technical uncertainties. This research limits itself to a case study of the Houtribdijk reinforcement project where both traditional and BwN flood defence solutions were employed. Furthermore, this research limits itself to the project phase where flood defence options are still considered.

This research found that although BwN flood defence project face technical uncertainties and discussions on efficacy, there is willingness to embrace a BwN solution when involved parties can agree on shared responsibilities. The curators of a flood defence project were found to be least willing to accept a technically uncertain design as they are accountable should it fail. The curators’ concern regarding their responsibilities can be mitigated and they can be more open to alternative solution if they are ensured of proper research and shared accountability when other values are destroyed in favour of flood protection. It was also found that the effect on stakeholders in financing and taking share of the responsibilities also have a positive effect on embracement of a BwN solution when the discussions on efficacy have not yet been settled.

The goal of this thesis was to ‘develop a tool that offers insights in message framing for behaviour change to improve communication towards customers.’ By using an Design Based Research and Double Diamond approach constant iterations were made between theory and practice to develop a support tool that helps sustainable start-ups to design message frames that stimulate pro-environmental consumer behaviour change. Furture recommendations are to further develop the tool, test the effects, and stimulate more integrated research on the psychology of behaviour change, sustainable behaviour barriers, and framing designs.