Tilburg Research about social innovation, nr.1 2014

1tilburg research - 2014 nr 1

T

ReseaRchi l b u r g

Pension innovations Democracy by doing Fighting human trafficking

social innovation

2 tilburg research - 2014 nr 1

4. Paul Scheffer in search of the vitality of Europe

8. Jelte Wicherts, the man behind the Journal of Open Psychological data

10. Philip Eijlander asks more funds for social innovation

12. Ton Wilthagen’s quest to end youth unemployment

16. Wim van de Donk sees a mission for tomorrow’s leaders

17. Evelien brouwers believes in building bridges between research and practice

24. Ted van de Wijdeven studies the democracy of action

26. Conny rijken’s efforts to reduce human trafficking

30. The proposition of Valerie Frissen: social innovation is an academic’s task

32. Casper van Ewijk: Netspar and partners strengthen pension sector together

37. Monique van Dijk-groeneboer is inspired by youth and religion

38. bart berden and the operation ‘Compassionate Hospital’

table of contents

8

32 38

12

24


Social & full of vitalityFull of vitality as they are, senior citizens can still do a huge amount in and for the community. They participate, in the form of paid or unpaid, fulltime or part-time work – if not by contributing their experience, knowledge and exper-tise within companies, then by contributing to the ‘action democracy’. We find them in neighborhoods and community centers –enjoying their well-earned retirement, looking after a sick family member, doing odd jobs at school, mind-ing their grandchildren. Our society could not do without them. In fact, we are asking more and more of them– not only financial sacrifices, but also intangi-ble ones, since both their pensions and the care that they deserve can no longer be taken for granted.

At Tilburg University research institutes and researchers are working on topics such as the participation society, the ageing population, pension issues and increasing flexibility in the employment market. Some of this research can be classified as ‘socially innovative’ –that is, researchers pick up on a social problem (such as youth unemployment, the ageing population, living environ-ments, civic participation) and enter into partnerships (with companies, public authorities, educational institutions) to look for solutions in a co-creative way.

In March, Queen Máxima visited our campus, where she witnessed the sign-ing of the Brabant Alliance, in which Tilburg University President Koen Becking agreed with the regional employ-ers’ association and

the City of Tilburg to make arrangements now –through social innovation– for tomorrow’s generation in the fields of employment, health care and sustain-ability. This issue of Tilburg Research showcases some striking projects in its special theme section on social innovation, which is introduced by Rector Magnificus Philip Eijlander.

Apart from the special theme section, you will find interviews with publicist Paul Scheffer on the vitality of Europe and with TIAS professor Bart Berden on the vitality of the merged Elisabeth TweeSteden Hospital. Methodologist Jelte Wicherts breaks a lance for the revitalization of research through ‘open access’.

Finally we would like to draw our readers’ attention to the fact that we too have been innovative as regards the approach and layout of this redesigned Tilburg Research magazine. From now on we will provide you with content about all the Tilburg disciplines and our designer has revitalized the magazine’s appearance. Enjoy! [CvD/IR]

Follow the team Research Communication: twitter.com/tilburgresearch

editorial

4

26

10

http://twitter.com/tilburgresearch


Paul Scheffer

‘We need a new story about the

vitality of Europe’

interviewtsB

Tineke Bennema


“I have always been concerned with Europe; for me it’s a natural sub-ject to focus on. The immigration issue crossed my path, but I think you have to be careful not to get caught up in your own views. You should always enter into discussion with people around you and with critics, continue to establish links and review your own ideas and views.” The Multicultural Drama provoked strong reactions. In this essay Paul Scheffer wrote that the integration of immigrants was in danger of failing, partly because of a lack of vision about the culture and identity of the majority. He also criti-cized avoidance and denial of social and cultural problems. As this interview will show, this has been a central theme in his work.In the fifteen years since his essay was published a lot has happened. “I have taken part in about seven hundred debates on the subject and have myself learned a lot from the things that I heard and that were entrusted to me. I would not write now as I did then. But if I put myself back in the time when I wrote it, I would do it exactly the same way again. The history of immigration in Europe is more complicated, a lot more dynamic than many people think. The continuity and vitality of the majority culture is underestimated, and we need to look more closely at the discontinuity of the history of immigrants.”

Knowledge acquisition as a Romantic puRsuitScheffer regards it a great privilege that he can take part in these debates; they provide inexhaustible sources for his research. Although there are piles of books everywhere in his office, all over the sofa and the floor, he is certainly no ivory tower scholar. The motives behind his research are both intellectual and moral. “I think it’s very much a part of the Netherlands to look beyond borders, beyond languages and disciplines –and to

benefit from doing so. As well as all the specialists in certain fields, you also need generalists like me to make connections, to draw on what others are doing. For example, you can’t understand Europe if you look at it purely in economic terms –and that is precisely what we tend to do at the moment.”

He also says that he has been fascinated for forty years by the search for integra-tion, the points of connection in moral life. “A quest for synthesis, derived from the fear of oppositions that cannot be

reconciled and that threaten civilization. In spite of all the differences, it is hard to avoid comparisons with the period between the wars: our open society, which cannot be taken for granted –this is the theme of the biography I wrote about the life and work of my grandfather Herman Wolf, who came from a German Jewish family.”

Immediately after graduating Scheffer went to Paris; following his great hero Sartre, he wanted to live by the pen.

Acquiring knowledge is a romantic pur-suit, he says with a grin. He still always has a notebook at hand and says that in the outside world he is equipped with the proverbial butterfly net.

contRoveRsy is necessaRy Currently he is working on a study about the putative decline of Europe, a subject he also discussed in his inaugural address in April. “We thought the same thing in the 1950s, when the Soviet Union was emerging, and later in the 1980s, with the rise of Japan. Based on what I’ve found so

Paul Scheffer’s work ranges widely –from immigration and integration to philos-ophy, planning and public administration. He became known and was criticized mainly for his essay The Multicultural Drama, published in 2000. Although at present he is moving further away from the integration debate, it still fits in with his current research at Tilburg University on the future of Europe. “Thinking about Europe has been dominated by the euro crisis and lack of knowledge of the past. Because of that crisis, on the one hand Europe has come very close, but it also arouses more resistance.”

‘Just as with the integration debate, the current discourse moralizes too much: Europe is good for everyone’


far, I have my doubts about this so-called decline. On the contrary, there is so much vitality in Europe, if you compare it with the problems in emerging countries such as Brazil, India and China. But if you look at the premise of the establishment of the EU, you see that it is very inward thinking. The ‘no more war’ idea was very productive, but at the same time it meant there was a very strong focus on the dif-ferences between France and Germany.”

He thinks that we should now look more closely at the developments outside Europe –study and compare the power of emerging countries. What are the gover-nance structures of these new superpow-ers? And are the people in those nations benefiting from the growing prosperity? Are they are just as rich per capita as we are? In Brazil, for example, the federal structure is paralyzed by power struggles: how can you bridge prosperity gaps in a system like this?

euRope’s hidden vitality “We focus too much on the economy; you can say that in relation to Europe as well. But Europe is more than the idea of the EU. That is why I say we should put the idea of the decline of Europe into perspec-tive and start talking about the hidden vitality of the continent again. Quality is also to be found in social, cultural and administrative areas –our equality, our protection of the individual, our urba-

nicity and states under the rule of law, a tradition of free inquiry and innova-tion. And let’s think about how we can strengthen this vitality: where does the strength of European society lie?”

He talks about the top 200 universities in the world. “The list only mentions two Chinese universities, no Indian univer-sity at all, but 87 European universities, including 12 Dutch ones! We should be strengthening this university culture.”

stRengthening the univeRsity cultuRe“Thinking about Europe has been domi-nated by the euro crisis and lack of knowl-edge of the past. Because of that crisis, on the one hand Europe has come very close, but as a result it has also aroused more resistance. Just as with the integra-tion debate –conflict makes you see the irreversibility, makes it transparent. And just as with the integration debate, the discourse moralizes too much: Europe is good for everyone. But you have to be able to say that it has advantages and disadvan-tages: it may prevent war and develop our economic strength in the world, but the other side of the coin is that Berlusconi is now also our politician, the Greek budget deficit is also our deficit and the refugees in Spain are also our refugees.”

He is in favor of an honest debate. “No more thinking about Europe only from the inside. You can only see what the European countries have in common when you compare them to other coun-tries. We need a new story about Europe; by looking at it from the perspective of Beijing or Sao Paulo, we can discover the hidden vitality of our continent.”

Paul Scheffer, The open society and its

immigrants: A story of avoidance, conflict

and accommodation, doctoral disserta-

tion, 2010.

paul scheffer (1954) studied Philosophy and Psychology in

Nijmegen and Political Science at the university of Amsterdam. He

worked as a correspondent in Paris and in Warsaw and as a researcher

at the Wiardi beckman Stichting, the research department of the PvdA

(the Dutch labor Party), until 1992. He has also made several

television series, in 2003 he was appointed Professor

of Metropolitan issues (an endowed chair) at the university of Amsterdam and in 2011 Professor of European Studies at the Tilburg School of Humanities at Tilburg

university.

Paul Scheffer, Immigrant Nations, Cambridge Polity Press 2011. This

book has an epilogue, After the Multicultural Drama, in which Scheffer

provides some reflections and introspections on his understanding of

the lives of immigrants since the publication of his article in 2000.

tsB


EVEr CloSEr FiSCAl AND buDgETAry uNioN

The Treaty on the Stability, Coordination and governance of the Economic and Monetary union (generally referred to as the Fiscal

Compact) has introduced the ‘golden rule’ that government budgets be balanced. The 25 members of the Eu which signed the Treaty in March 2012 have to incorporate this with-in their national Constitutions. This represents a major and unprecedented development, raising formidable challenges to the nature and legitimacy of national Constitutions as well as to the future of the European integration project. The new book The Constitutionalization of European Budgetary Constraints, edited by Tilburg law School scholars Maurice Adams, Federico Fabbrini and Pierre larouche, combines insights from law and economics to offer a comprehensive survey of the constitutional incorporation of new fiscal and budgetary rules across Europe and a systematic normative discussion of the legitimacy issues at play. [CS]

Maurice Adams, Federico Fabbrini and Pierre larouche, The Constitutionalization of European Budgetary Constraints, Tilburg law School, Hart Publishing, 2014.

MuSiC MAy PrEVENT ForENSiC PSyCHiAT-riC PATiENTS FroM rEoFFENDiNg

Many people are susceptible to music –including offenders with psychiatric or psychological prob-lems. in her doctoral dissertation, laurien Hakvoort explores the

possibility of using music therapeutically to stimulate new and positive behavior in forensic psychiatric patients. She concludes that it is quite likely that music therapy might help to reduce the risk of recidivism among forensic psychiatric patients by developing skills to change behavior, such as cop-ing and anger management skills.

Hakvoort, a neurological music therapist, developed a music therapy program aimed at reducing risk-taking behavior among forensic psychiatric patients with personality disor-

ders. Her doctoral dissertation includes a literature review that builds on knowledge derived from the psychology of music, the neurology of music and music therapy. She goes on to combine that knowledge with evidence-based treatment methods. Her study provides a good theoretical basis for the further development of cognitive-behavioral music therapy in forensic psychiatry. given the limited number of participants, no conclusive answers as to the effectiveness of this therapy can be based on the clinical trial in this doctoral dissertation. [CvD]

laurien Hakvoort, Cognitive Behavioral Music Therapy in Forensic Psychiatry: Workable Assumptions, Empirical Studies and Theoretical Foundations for Primary Goal-oriented Treatment, ArtEZ Press, 2014. Dissertation supervisor: Stefan bogaerts, Tilburg School of Social and behavioral Sciences, Tilburg university

PAyMENT FrAuD A DiSASTEr For THE PoPulAriTy oF ElECTroNiC PAyMENT

if banks, businesses and retailers want to further promote electronic payment to reduce social costs, they will have to continue to make

efforts to prevent fraud and other security risks. This is what PhD student Anneke Kosse says on the basis of her doctoral dissertation. Dutch consumers pay cash more often after reading reports of debit card fraud in the media. if they have experienced debit card fraud themselves, they are also more often inclined to pay cash. Kosse works as a researcher and policy advisor at De Nederlandsche bank and has currently been seconded to the bank of Canada.

Among other things, she shows that security incidents can have a major impact on the payment behavior of consumers and therefore also on the total social costs of payment trans-actions. Consumers say that the more they think there is a high risk of incidents with debit cards, the more likely they are to opt for cash payments. [RvdB]

Anneke Kosse: Consumer Payment Choices: Room for Further Digitization?, CentEr Dissertation Series, 2014. Dissertation supervisors: ron berndsen and Sylvester Eijffinger, Tilburg School of Economics and Management, Tilburg university

A N N E K E K O S S E

Consumer payment choices:

Room for further digitisation?

Dissertation SeriesTILBURG SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT

NR

. 38

2 C

on

su

me

r pa

ym

en

t ch

oic

es

: Ro

om

for fu

rthe

r dig

itisa

tion

?

An

ne

ke

Ko

ss

e

U I T N O D I G I N G

Van harte nodig ik u uit

voor het bijwonen van de

openbare verdediging van

mijn proefschrift

Consumer

payment choices:

Room for further

digitisation?

op maandag 10 maart

2014 om 14.15 uur in het

Auditorium van

Tilburg University,

Warandelaan 2, Tilburg.

LekenpraatjeVoorafgaand aan de

verdediging om 14.00 uur

in het Auditorium

ReceptieAansluitend op de

promotie in de

Kleine Foyer

Paranimfen

David-Jan Jansen

[email protected] Jonker

[email protected]

ANNEKE KOSSE

Falstaffl aan 22

2152 DL Nieuw-Vennep

[email protected]

There is a large variety of instruments that consumers can use for making payments. The use of electronic payment instruments, such as payment cards and online transfers, has considerably increased over the past decades. Yet, consumers still heavily rely on cash and other paper-based means of payment. The objective of this thesis is to examine the drivers underlying consumers’ choice of which payment instruments to use for their transactions. More specifi cally, in three empirical studies, this thesis examines how consumers’ payment choices are infl uenced by foreign backgrounds and by payments safety. However, as having accurate data on the use of payment instruments is key to assessing the drivers underneath, this thesis fi rst takes one step back and provides a profound analysis of how to best measure consumers’ payment behaviour, and in particular their use of cash.

ANNEKE KOSSE (1981) graduated cum laude in International Development Studies at the Wageningen University in 2005. After graduation, she worked as a researcher at TNO in Delft. Since March 2006, she has been working as a researcher and policy advisor at the Payments Systems Policy Department at De Nederlandsche Bank in Amsterdam. Her main research and policy activities aim at better understanding consumers’ and retailers’ payment behaviour, in order to gain insight into how the safety and social cost effi ciency of payments can be further increased.

ISBN: 978 90 5668 383 2

publications


Through open access, JOPD reveals datasets that are extremely valuable for further research and highlight the usefulness of data sharing in psychology. The new online journal publishes peer-reviewed papers with psychology datasets with high reuse potential. These papers may contain data from unpublished work, such as replication research, or data previously published in academic jour-nals. JOPD works with a number of specialist and institu-tional data repositories to ensure that the associated data are professionally archived, preserved and made publicly available. The data and the papers are citable and reuse is tracked.

unique data on Racism and iqRecently, two of the largest datasets in psychology were released through the journal. The first set consists of data collected in the Implicit Association Test, with the scores of over 2.3 million people. These data can provide new insights into less conscious aspects of racism.2

One of the oldest data sets in psychology has now also become available through JOPD. These data come from a large-scale intelligence test in which an IQ test dat-ing from 1935 was used again in 2006 to test Estonian schoolchildren. This makes it possible to examine wheth-er the well-documented increase in IQ in the twentieth century is due to the population becoming smarter or to respondents becoming better at doing IQ tests.3

psychologists release data

twitter.com/up_jopd

twitter.com/JelteWicherts

interview

For a long time psychologists were reluctant to share their research data. with the introduction of the Journal of Open Psychology Data (JOPD), a group of international researchers led by tilburg methodologist Jelte wicherts wants to change this.1

Seminar on scientific integrity:

‘improving scientific practice: dealing

with the human factors’, 11 September

2014 in Amsterdam. organization:

Jelte Wicherts together with the

university of Amsterdam (uvA).

tsB

http://twitter.com/up_jopd

http://twitter.com/JelteWicherts

For 2 and 3, see website: Website JoPD: http://openpsychologydata.metajnl.com


psychology is Becoming incReasingly openEditor-in-chief Jelte Wicherts of the Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences is very pleased about the release of these unique datasets. “Both sets are fascinating. They can be used for a huge amount of follow-up research and also in psychology teaching. The authors show just how open science should be. The fact

is, we don’t collect interesting data only for ourselves, but ultimately to serve the whole of science. There will be more articles appearing in JOPD by researchers who are keen to share their data. This will make psychology increasingly open. Data papers of this kind are the reason we set up JOPD.” [CvD]

psychologists release data

‘We don’t collect data for ourselves, but to serve science’

1 The Journal of Open Psychology Data is published by ubiquity

Press. JoPD was partly made possible by DANS (Data Archiving

and Networked Services), a service associated with the royal

Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).

Website DANS: www.dans.knaw.nl

2 Xu, K., Nosek, b. & greenwald, A.g.

(2014): Psychology data from the race

implicit Association Test on the Project

implicit Demo website.

3 Must, o. & Must, A. (2014): Data

from ‘Changes in test-taking pat-

terns over time’ concerning the

Flynn Effect in Estonia.

twitter.com/up_jopd

twitter.com/JelteWicherts

http://openpsychologydata.metajnl.com

http://dans.knaw.nl

http://twitter.com/up_jopd

http://twitter.com/JelteWicherts


More funds needed for social innovation

Since Tilburg University is a social sciences university par excellence, the social innovation agenda fits it like a glove. The Advisory Council for Science and Technology Policy (AWT) regards social innovation as a generic term for ‘contemporary initiatives of individuals and organizations focusing on innovative solutions for social problems’. This spring, at the symposium titled ‘All Innovation Counts’, held on our campus, the AWT presented important recommendations to the Dutch government for making better use of the power of social innovation. For instance, focus on innovation in government policy should not be limited to tech-nological innovation; no unnecessary obstacles should be created in regulations; and there must be room for experimentation. All of these are sound recommendations and the government would do well to act on them.

Technology can certainly help us to move forward in solving various issues. But it is precisely the social sciences that focus on sectors in today’s society where there are major problems: healthcare, employment, the economic crisis, the ageing population and sustainability. This is shown in a recent report from the Erasmus University Rotterdam, which concludes that innovation in industry is still too much limited to the technological sector. As a result, innovation as a whole is lagging behind. As a social sciences uni-versity, Tilburg University is urging the government to make social innovation a primary target in its policy and also to make more funds available for it. Otherwise the Netherlands will lose the competi-tion with foreign countries.

The Rotterdam study shows that 75 percent of the success of the top sector policy can be explained by effective social innovation –new ways of managing, organizing and working, and sustainable collaboration between companies, knowledge institutions and public authorities. Innovation is the engine of economic growth, the foundation of prosperity and well-being. Solutions to major social issues cannot be based solely on economic gain; the answers must be sought in socio-economic and cultural knowledge –also in the long term.

In this new issue of Tilburg Research we want to show what the ‘Tilburg meth-od’ for social innovation is. After all, ‘Understanding Society’ is our motto. But we want to go beyond understanding alone, and also contribute actively to improving our society. Our academics work on a societal and multidisci-plinary basis with external partners. To do this, long-term partnerships on an equal footing, with added value for all parties, is essential. From this page onwards in this magazine you can read about the fruits –so far– of these fine co-creations.

In the meantime, we will continue along the path we have chosen.

Philip Eijlander, Rector Magnificus Tilburg University

social innovationintroduction special

twitter.com/Tilburgu_rector

http://twitter.com/TilburgU_Rector


social innovationspecial

twitter.com/Tilburgu_rector

http://twitter.com/TilburgU_Rector


social innovation

‘We will make Central Brabant a youth-unemployment- free zone’

in collaboration with entrepreneurs, schools and munic-ipalities, tilburg university has launched an offensive against youth unemployment. professor of labor market studies ton wilthagen is the driving force. “i could have limited myself to writing an article. then in two years’ time you could’ve read my ideas about how we might have tackled youth unemployment in 2013.”


Marten van de Wier

Yik Ho Wong (27) is beaming. Yesterday Wong, a former student of Communication and Information Studies at Tilburg University, heard that after his ‘start-up grant’(Dutch name: Startersbeurs) he will be able to stay on with PauwR Internet Marketing in the center of Tilburg. “Yik Ho has made a flying start and has convinced us that we cannot do without him,” says owner Pieter Voogt.

Voogt and Wong tell their story sitting at an old autographed NOS (Netherlands Broadcasting Corporation) presentation desk that PauwR picked up at a charity auction. Voogt only takes on employees he already knows, for example because they have done an internship with him. “If it hadn’t been for the start-up grant, Yik Ho would not be here,” admits Voogt. “It’s win, win, win. I can employ someone without much risk. Yik Ho can learn and gain experience. And the municipality spends less money on benefits.”

The Tilburg and ’s-Hertogenbosch regions aim to have become a youth-unemploy-ment-free zone by 2018, partly thanks to these start-up grants. Young people do not yet have a network they can use to find a job and they have no experience they can refer to when applying for a job. This problem is particularly acute during an economic crisis. With an internship through the start-up grant, partly funded by the municipality, they can gain expe-

rience and develop a network. And compa-nies can discover young talent.

Professor of Labor Market Studies Ton Wilthagen, director of Tilburg University’s ReflecT Institute, thought up both the start-up grants and the concept of a ‘youth-unemployment-free zone’. In March, research and educational institu-tions, municipalities and entrepreneurs in the region signed up to the ambition to reduce youth unemployment from 3600 to zero through social innovation.

Wilthagen starts the interview with a fresh sheet of paper in front of him, to enhance his words with drawings. “ReflecT examines the interaction between labor market dynamics and social cohesion and security,” he explains. “One of the concerns is that society is splitting into one group that is sidelined and one group that works. This is why young peo-ple automatically come into the picture, because in this time of crisis it is difficult

for newcomers to enter the labor market. We look at the career paths young people take and at the connection between edu-cation and employment. We see that to an increasing extent young people end up in casual employment. What does this mean for their position on the labor market, for their income and for their social security? These are things that we are examining in a longitudinal study.”

For this study ReflecT makes use of panels such as the LISS panel at Tilburg University’s CentERdata research insti-tute, which has information about five thousand households, or the panel of the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP). ReflecT also has a direct connec-tion with Statistics Netherlands (CBS). Wilthagen draws three triangles, which he connects with lines. “People are included in several datasets. If you combine those data, for example on the basis of their cit-izen service numbers, you will know a lot more. Of course we do this in anonymous

social innovation

Professor of Labor Market Studies Ton Wilthagen:

‘Social innovation means thinking further than the last point of your academic article’


social innovation

form. The final step in this process is the use of ‘big data’: public information, which can simply be found in ‘the cloud’ on the Internet. Having as much infor-mation as possible at our disposal is very important for our research.”

Wilthagen is also Chair of the Youth Unemployment Task Force of the European Policy Centre (EPC) in Brussels. Europe also wants to put an end to youth unemployment. Why not take the lead in Central Brabant? The idea of a start-up grant got the professor moving. Wilthagen was determined to find a way to help starters gain experience and build up a network. He draws a finish line (the job) and a queue of waiting balls. “The ones at the back include people on benefits. The ones at the front are the people who are

productive and highly trained. But with-out experience you cannot signal that you are productive.”

He got in touch with the youth trade unions to work out the details of the start-up grant in collaboration with them. The municipality of Tilburg was enthusias-tic. “They put the right public servants to work on the practical aspects of the scheme,” says Wilthagen. “Very soon edu-cational institutions and employers came

knocking, keen to participate.” Eighteen months later, 150 municipalities are work-ing with start-up grants and more than a thousand young people are taking part. This is social innovation at its best.

Annemarie de Zwart (24) is one of the young people who has benefited. After graduating and having had a temporary contract, she found herself unemployed. “If you don’t have work, that does some-thing to you,” said the former student of Hotel and Event Management. “You start by applying for jobs assertively, but gradually you become more dispirited. Sometimes I would sense that people around me were thinking that I wasn’t trying hard enough. That makes you feel even more uncertain. You get into a down-ward spiral.”

She tells her story in the restaurant at Mercure Hotel Tilburg Centrum, where she works as a sales and marketing assis-tant. Annemarie de Zwart has stopped her start-up grant, because she made such a good impression that she was given a tem-porary contract after just three months. At present she is filling in for her supervisor, who is on maternity leave. Along with her, De Zwart set up the promotion campaign

The owner of PauwR Internet Marketing Pieter Voogt admits that without the start-up grant he would not have taken on Yik Ho Wong.

facts & figuresYouth unemployment

youth unemployment is 16.5 percent (1st quarter 2014 – CbS)

3600 unemployed youth in Central brabant

1000 youth in 150 municipalities work(ed) with a ‘start-up grant’

youth between 18 and 27 can participate

50 percent of the participants find a job afterwards (according to Startersbeurs)


social innovation

twitter.com/Wilthagen startersbeurs.nu

facebook.com/StartersbeursNederland

twitter.com/startersbeurs

for the hotel’s new sauna. “I’m gaining a lot of work experience, and I’m doing things I really enjoy.”

The same applies to Yik Ho Wong. On his computer at PauwR Internet Marketing, he shows how he sets up Adwords cam-paigns: advertising for businesses through Google. On the other side of the office in the center of Tilburg, two colleagues are evaluating a campaign for a hi-fi business. “The knowledge I acquired during my degree program was already partly outdat-ed,” says Wong. “While I had my start-up grant I learned a huge amount that I can apply immediately.”

It made Wilthagen sad to see young people like De Zwart and Wong being sidelined because of the crisis. “That human capital starts to deteriorate while young people are getting scarce –we are going to need them badly later on.” Wilthagen ignores criticism of his practical activities. This professor has a strong sense of social com-mitment, and he frankly admits that when it comes to youth unemployment he likes to play a role that is almost that of an activ-ist. “You could just stay in your office, but ivory tower research is not appropriate in this day and age. Social innovation means thinking beyond the last point of your aca-demic article. As a researcher, you have to go a little way across the bridge to society. Sometimes I go right across that bridge,” says Wilthagen. “I could have limited myself to writing an article. Then in two years’ time you could have read about how we could have dealt with youth unemploy-ment in 2013.” In Wilthagen’s opinion,

this would not do justice to the urgency of the problem.

The professor thinks it’s fantastic that the university is committed to trying to put an end to youth unemployment in the region –not only because he believes the university should operate in the midst of society, but also because the project will soon yield a wealth of information about the regional labor market. “As yet we have hardly any regional data, while the region is becoming increasingly important. In the future this will in turn lead to some fine publications.” And of course research should be conducted to ascertain whether the grant really does work. “We are work-ing hard on surveys that will enable us to follow what happens to these young people in the long term.”

Niek van den Broek, General Manager at Mercure Tilburg Centrum, is convinced that the grants have a positive impact. He had another successful starter as well as Annemarie de Zwart, and is planning to use the grant again at some point. “If you want to get on in the hotel industry, it helps a lot to have experience with the systems of the Accor group –to which we belong– and if you can list us as a reference. With a start-up grant on your resume you can show that you are extremely motivated. It works.”

As a starter at Hotel Mercure, Annemarie de Zwart made such an impression that she was given a temporary contract after just three months.

See the publications of the reflecT team via: www.tilburguniversity.edu/reflect

http://twitter.com/Wilthagen

http://startersbeurs.nu

http://facebook.com/pages/Startersbeurs-Nederland/133781483458683

http://twitter.com/startersbeurs

http://tilburguniversity.edu/reflect


yehzekel Dror, Avant-Garde

Politician. Leaders for a new Epoch,

Washington D.C., Westphalia

Press, 2014.

social innovation guest column

WiM VAN DE DoNK

‘Descriptions of history as an oil tanker which can change directions only very slowly are true for much but not all of it. To stay for a moment with the metaphor, a tsunami can surely turn a tanker in a minute, and a torpedo can blow it up in a second. Our epoch is one of history taking a sharp turn into a new ‘space’, not only another direction, driven by science and technology together with value trans-formations. All in all, our epoch is one of metamorphosis, which can lead to thriving, to transformation of the species into Homo sapiens superior or human monsters, or to dis-mal catastrophes up to the demise of humanity.’ (Dror, p.4).

When I took office as the King’s Commissioner in the province where we spell innovation with a capital I, I talked –in the same spirit as Yehzekel Dror, one of my teachers, in the passage above– about the sense of gov-erning in a time of radical change. After all, the idea that technological and social development takes place according to calm, evolutionary patterns is, in the words of paleontologist Stephen J. Gould, primarily a fiction cherished by culture and society. Anyone who allows the impact of quite disruptive technologies such as 3-D printing, advanced robotics, nanotechnology and the development of various new materials to sink in will be unable to deny that these technologies will have very far-reaching consequences for the way our economy and society evolve. In his most recent book Dror claims that our political and economic elites are barely –and certain-ly insufficiently– aware of how much we need to prepare for the drastic changes that such technologies will cause in the social domain.

‘The vast majority of political leaders lack many qualities of the mind essential for coping with increasingly novel critical issues, as deep globalization, vexing economic crisis, unprec-edented geopolitical shifts, aggravating greenhouse effects,

explosive demographic pressures, disruptive technologies, growing human enhancement possibilities, fanatics armed with new mass-killing devices, bloody clashes of cultures, and more.’(Dror, p.5).

A university that prides itself on its understanding of society clearly has a fine mission here, especially since the innovations that will be needed to cope with all these opportunities and threats will not manifest themselves only –or even first and foremost– in a purely technolog-ical domain. Undeniably, a profound understanding of the impact of technological innovations is an important prerequisite for future-oriented governance. But what is more essential is to work toward understanding the social dimension of all these changes. I am convinced that the adjustments we will have to make to prepare humanity for the future will mainly relate to social insti-tutions and behavior. One of the tasks of a university is to educate the elites for tomorrow’s society. That is not possible without paying attention to and critically inves-tigating the fundamental values which will keep the society of the future vital and viable. Fortunately, Tilburg University has not only the brainpower and creativity required to make a major contribution to this, but also the awareness that the important and essential social innovations that society needs have their roots in the core values that the university has inherited from its Catholic tradition.

Wim van de Donk (1962) is King’s Commissioner of the province of North Brabant. Previously he was a professor at Tilburg University.

The mission for tomorrow’s leaders


These areas range from addiction and elderly care to public health and preven-tion. ‘Science practitioners’ play a key role: policymakers, practitioners from healthcare and welfare institutions and healthcare consumers work together with Tranzo scientists on knowledge develop-ment and innovation of healthcare and welfare. During these collaborations, the practitioners also conduct research –for instance a PhD– within the university. It ‘builds bridges’ between research and practice, explains Evelien Brouwers. But she believes that the contribution of patients, as experiential experts, is also crucial. “According to Tranzo’s philoso-phy, knowledge stems from three main sources: academics, practitioners and patients. All three have unique knowledge that the other two don’t have, and we try to connect them to gain new insights.”

Brouwers coordinates the Workplace Geestdrift, which recently signed its

third five-year agreement, along with the Eindhoven and Breburg mental health services. Major funders such as the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Dutch health research organisation ZonMw are very happy if research has practical relevance and helps improve healthcare and welfare.

Brouwers’s own main expertise is recov-ery from mental disorders and the role of work in recovery processes. Her team investigates how people who ‘drop out’ can recover faster. “Work has many health benefits: income, daily routine, distraction, meaning and social contacts. Absenteeism due to psychological prob-lems is very common, and with stress-re-lated illnesses 20 percent of people are still at home after a year. In addition, the sick employee develops more distance from the labor market and absenteeism is a very costly problem for employers and society. There is great room for improve-

ment in this area, for all parties involved.” Recovery processes associated with addic-tion and more severe mental disorders are also a subject of research at Geestdrift.

For example, the effect was measured of a course developed by and for patients called ‘Recovery –you do it yourself’ about how to pick up your life again after a difficult period. The Tilburg researchers examined the effect of this course in a large randomized national survey [1], with an experimental group and a control group, in which over 300 people partici-pated. It was found that the course signifi-cantly facilitated the recovery process of people with severe mental problems. “The fact that our research has shown that you can achieve such positive effects with a course developed by the target group itself –people who have often been in treatment for years– is a very fine example of social innovation.” [MdB]

social innovation

[1] gestel-Timmermans, J.A.W.M.

van (2011). Recovery is up to you;

Evaluation of a peer-run course

(Doctoral dissertation). Tilburg

university, Tilburg.

Karlijn van beurden, E.P.M. brouwers, M.C.W. Joosen, b. Terluin,

J.J.l. van der Klink & J. van Weeghel. Effectiveness of guideline-based

care by occupational physicians on the return-to-work of workers with

common mental disorders: design of a cluster-randomised controlled

trial. BMC Public Health 2013.

www.tilburguniversity.edu/tranzo

“it’s precisely when dif-ferent disciplines work together more that inter-esting ideas flourish,” believes Evelien brouwers of the Departmental board of Tranzo. This academ-ic healthcare and welfare center has seven Academic Workplaces focusing on certain areas.

Tranzo ‘builds bridges’ between research and practice

The mission for tomorrow’s leaders

http://tilburguniversity.edu/tranzo


social innovation

‘Don’t give up on young people with problems’

over the years, remedial educationist and child-rearing expert peter nouwens –chair of the executive Board of healthcare organization prisma– has seen many initiatives and interventions that were well intentioned, but not very effective for the target group of young people with intellectual disabilities. he became one of the ‘science practitioners’ at tranzo’s academic workplace geestdrift. “as my research progresses, it is increasingly clear to me that assessing the individual needs of young people with problems is a major stumbling block.”


“What really concerns me is the explosive growth of the number of young people with mild intellectual disabilities. Compared with ten years ago, we are now seeing a lot more young people who are unable to find their way in society and become dependent on professional help. They often have mental problems, no work or daily activities, come from fam-ilies with multiple problems, have little contact with their peers, live in poverty and solitude and sometimes clash with the police and judiciary. What is going on here? What is happening in our soci-ety? How can we explain this worrying increase? These questions are the focus of my PhD research at Tranzo. “I want to find out why some young peo-ple with mild intellectual disabilities get along fine in society, whereas others drop out or are treated as outcasts by society and become dependent on systematic, long-term care. What are the distinguish-ing factors? Prisma wants to give each of its clients a safe place in society, with the care that is needed – but what is needed here? We receive about a hundred applica-tions a month. Ten years ago, about 10 per cent of these might have been young peo-ple with intellectual disabilities, whereas now it’s 60 to 70 per cent.

“I’m nearly 58 and as the director of a healthcare organization I have a full

agenda. Being a director is not so much a job as a life! But I’ve always had research ambitions and that kept niggling. Apart from that, over the years I’ve seen so many initiatives and interventions, devised precisely for this group of young people with mild intellectual disabilities, that were well intentioned, but not very effective. What Prisma needs is evi-dence-based programs that are effective. Tranzo excels in research that is relevant to everyday reality, and thanks to the Academic Workplaces it has plenty of branches in society. This is why I came here two years ago as a ‘science practi-

tioner’, looking for ways to improve the help we give to these young people with problems.

“One day a week – every Tuesday – I go to Tranzo and when I’m there I feel like a child at a big candy booth where you can choose whatever you like. Here you meet all these inspiring researchers and practitioners from fields such as psychi-atry, disability care and elderly care. As my research progresses, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that assessing the individual needs of young people with problems is a major stumbling block. In reality, in most cases you cannot see their problems in isolation from family problems or the community. At Prisma, this is where we now focus our support. The challenge is to strengthen parents in their parenting tasks, surrounded by neighbors or family members who may have a positive impact on the family. In this way we can keep more young people with problems on track. You mustn’t give up on them.”

social innovation

‘Don’t give up on young people with problems’

Evelien Brouwers and Peter NouwensMarion de Boo

‘What Prisma needs is evidence-based programsthat are effective’


“Connecting. An open way of working. Social focus. Being approachable. I see these things as the ingredients of the Tilburg method of social innovation. The work-

ing procedure of the ‘real estate lab’ VastgoedLAB is a way of achieving social inno-vation. You build a coalition with key partners in the sector, in our case FGHBank,

AMVEST, PwC and PGGM. They are sponsors, but above all they are sparring partners. They don’t compete with each other and they help to find solutions. It is on the basis of this coalition that ideas for VastgoedLAB are generated, as regards both

content and form. Think of it as co-creation. Four times a year we meet at a partners’ dinner. They tell us what’s going on with them, what their concerns are. These

are the issues that we look at, for instance in the webinars we organize every six weeks. We also review our research agenda.

“Within VastgoedLAB we make topical issues as factual and accessible as possible. Just recently we had a webinar about the consequences of the AIFM Directive –the new European regulation for fund investors– for real estate funds. Previous topics have included big data and the opportunities it provides for the real estate market,

how to tackle the problem of empty office blocks, how to deal with incorrect apprais-als and how successful real estate investments are. We address issues in the sector

and make them as factual and accessible as possible. A recurring item is the Energy Label Index. Every quarter we examine how the energy label is performing in the Dutch housing market. A recent conclusion was that homes with an energy label

have higher sales prices. Last year we also investigated whether the media are really so negative about the real estate sector as everyone in the sector perceives. We discov-

ered this was incorrect. On the basis of research we hold up a mirror to the sector.“Everything we do is on the VastgoedLAB website, where you will find the webinars, short articles about studies, media appearances, abstracts of theses, etc. This website

is our knowledge portal –our transparent window to the outside world. This is our strength: no secret experiments behind closed doors, but everything on display.

Our governance model requires this. We make relevant knowledge available to every-one and we are approachable. I see this as another essential component of

social innovation.

“In VastgoedLAB we connect stakeholders. In addition to our four key partners, we also have nine network partners who pass on the relevant information from us to

their followers, ensuring that the market knows us. This formula works: since 2011 the number of visitors has more than doubled, to over five thousand a year. We have a

good reach and therefore we have impact.

“Within TIAS we have organized all our knowledge areas in the LAB way. It is the backbone of our research and teaching. It would be fantastic if the LAB method

could eventually become the Tilburg method. Tranzo and Netspar are already using it, in their own way. If you can work like this campus-wide on the basis of social

themes, you can build powerful coalitions. The infrastructure is there, the knowledge is there and the network is there too. Surely bringing it all together

is a no-brainer?” [RvdB]

social innovation researcH portrait

‘Our strength: everything On real estate On display’

dirk BrOunen

Professor of real Estate Economics, Associate Dean research & Development and founder of VastgoedlAb at TiAS School for business and Society

Tilburg School of Economics, TiASSchool for business and Society

Research themes risk and return on real estate investments and sustainability in the housing market

Dirk brounen, Nils Kok, John Quigley,

Residential energy use and conservation:

Economics and demographics, European

Economic review, 2012.

www.vastgoedlab.nl (click on English for

translated content)

www.linkedin.com/groups/

VastgoedlAb-4134625

”

http://vastgoedlab.nl

http://linkedin.com/groups/VastgoedLAB-4134625

http://linkedin.com/groups/VastgoedLAB-4134625


“What capital does an organization, company, region or a municipality have at its disposal, and what additional ventures can it take on based on that capital? Telos makes this transparent and manageable using its Triple-P monitoring tools. Apart from eco-nomic capital, we also provide insight into social and cultural capital; for instance, we quantify civic participation and the levels of health and education of the population. And we measure ecological capital: the presence of certain pollution, but also what natural environment there is. In addition, we develop integral chain analyses to obtain a good picture of how organizations and regions work with raw materials. Think of the water regime of the province of Brabant –important for companies that set up here for our water, such as Bavaria and Coca-Cola. What comes into the province through rain, rivers and groundwater? And what goes out?

“Our third research focus is sustainable regional development. We make a kind of Triple-P photograph of a region and then think together about opportunities for devel-opment. In late 2009, Telos received a request from the Central Brabant region to think about a strategic agenda. From our Triple-P perspective, we considered what the distinc-tive features of this region might be. We discovered that many companies were working on sustainable innovation –Desso, Fuji, Innofa, CZ. Knowledge is becoming increas-ingly important for regional economies. The tertiary education facilities in the region provided opportunities. At the same time, it was apparently difficult for businesses to find their way to the university. The challenge was to bring the university and industry closer together. To do that, you have come up with a facilitating agenda –and that agen-da proved to be social innovation.

“When I came to work at Telos as a leisure researcher, I thought sustainable develop-ment was just for tree huggers. That idea changed quickly. You realize that there is just no other way. The leisure economy is also increasingly confronted with the need for sustainable development. In the development of your business model, you have to look at social and ecological values as well as profit margins. An attraction like the Efteling is specifically related to the region. Employees in the region talk about their experiences. Residents protest if trees are cut down to build more holiday homes. Your visitors come and look and tweet about you. The core of the leisure economy is to make sure people feel good when they go home. This has gradually become a much wider phenomenon. We have moved from an economy of scarcity to an economy of abundance. In the econo-my of abundance we are no longer interested in cheap entertainment, but in quality and a unique experience.

“In my view, the common thread between leisure, sustainable development and social innovation is the search for new and better organizational structures. It’s about unchaining values –things need to be taken out of their old value chains and put into better ones. Intensive livestock farming has a culture of competing on price– and that is not sustainable. Bargain-priced meat has to be replaced by a different concept. You need to assign different values to your product, which have to do with other aspects such as craftsmanship and authenticity. Then a different story will be associated with a farming product. This was successful with the Rondeel brand eggs. Rondeel free-range chickens have a better life. People go to visit the farms, children can play there, and you can even hold meetings there. In this way new, sustainable value chains can be created. [IR]

hans MOMMaas

Professor of leisure Studies, Director of Telos

Telos, brabant Centre for Sustainable Development

Research themesleisure, culture, sustainable development, regional development

Hans Mommaas, rik Eweg. Toward a more

sustainable fit between innovation strategies and

the institutional environment. Article published

in: The TransForum Model: Transforming Agro

Innovation Toward Sustainable Development,

2011.

social innovation researcH portrait

‘telOs Makes peOple and planet cOMprehensiBle tOO’

www.telos.nl/english

N. van boom, Hans Mommaas, Comeback

Cities. Transformation strategies for former

industrial cities. book published by Nai

Publishers, 2009.

”

http://telos.nl/english


A flood, a plane crash, a terrorist attack or a fire at a chemical plant. When a disaster occurs, infor-mation can be vital to help aid workers make the right decisions. How can we ensure that the police, the fire service, local authorities, and national and international aid workers are not working at cross purposes? How can different computer systems, databases, social media, telephony and digital maps be used? The role of digital information in decision-making processes in humanitarian aid is the core component of the research carried out by Assistant Professor of Information Management Bartel van de Walle and PhD student Kenny Meesters. For their research, the two members of the Tilburg Sustainability Center frequently get their feet dirty –quite literally– and travel to disaster areas. Meesters: “Usually reality is more complex than you can imagine if you stay at your desk.” Moreover, they organize disaster simulations in arious countries which include a ‘social media simulation’ component. [IR]

social innovation researcH in tHe picture

Helping aid workers with & new technologies

1.

2.

3.


social innovation researcH in tHe picture

E. gralla, J. goentzel, b. Van de Walle, Field-Based Decision Makers’

Needs by Sudden-Onset Disasters. report commissioned by the uN

office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (uN oCHA)

M. van den Homberg, K. Meesters en b. Van de Walle, Coordination

and Information Management in the Haiyan Response: observations

from the field, 2014, Elsevier.

http://digitalhumanitarians.com

www.tilburguniversity.edu/tsc

twitter.com/bvdwalle, twitter.com/k_meesters

Kenny (standing) oversees how aid workers at a coordination center practice using analysis tools and coordinate the provision of aid.

Participants in the game have to look for victims and help them, but ‘militants’ with guns are obstructing the aid workers.

By both simulating a physical disaster situation, such as a major fire, and organizing an ‘information flow’ on the internet from victims and potential victims, the game helps to ensure that emer-gency services and governments are better prepared for what may become reality.

After the typhoon in the Philippines, the Digital Humanitarian Network –an international volunteer network– got to work all over the world monitoring social media. They collected and analyzed tens of thousands of tweets, photos and videos from the Philippines that appeared on the internet: distress signals, missing person reports, pictures of devastation, requests for information. This photo shows ‘disaster maps’ created by these volunteers through crowd-sourcing at the headquarters of UN OCHA in Manila.

Tina Comes (left) and Kenny Meesters (right) interviewing an aid worker from Internews, an organization which provided a local radio station in the Philippines with new transmitting equipment. The Tilburg team also visited relief stations run by organizations including UN OCHA, UNICEF and the Red Cross.

“Attention, today food packages will be provided in the following places ...” An example of the important information provision role played by radio station Bakdaw in the aid given in the Philippines. People could text reports to the station, so that they literally had a say.

Bartel van de Walle (center) and Tina Comes receiving an expla-nation about a ‘physical’ map the local population has made of the district, which will help aid workers to get their bearings.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

4.

5.

6.

7.

http://digitalhumanitarians.com

http://tilburguniversity.edu/tsc

http://twitter.com/bvdwalle

http://twitter.com/k_meesters


social innovation

Ted van de Wijdeven is the expert par excellence on active citizenship. He has examined many initiatives taken by people who want to make their local community a better place. According to the Tilburg researcher, it’s the doers who take the lead and who give democracy a new spur. Van de Wijdeven coined a new word for this, which is also the title of his PhD thesis: Democracy of Action (Doe-democratie).

Clemens van Diek

In his thesis, Van de Wijdeven specifically discusses ‘doers’ in the public domain: people who contribute to ‘democracy of action’ by engaging in concrete activities in and for the community. Examples are cleaning up a particular neighborhood or making it safe, setting up a community center, building playgrounds or other community facilities, or building tennis courts.

What is the connection with social innovation? That’s pretty simple, according to Van de Wijdeven. People observe a problem in their area, see a need in their neighborhood or community, and get to work to find a solution, in collaboration with other local resi-dents, businesses, public authorities and municipal services. Together, by ‘doing’, they achieve an improvement in their community. This is another form of social innovation. It is a method that fits in well with the network society of the twenty-first century.

social capitalVan de Wijdeven examined initiatives in several towns, in Tilburg and in some major Dutch cities. “Sometimes the fact that a project succeeds is just down to chance. You never know what a particular mix of people will accomplish. Think of it as a cooperative of professionals, amateurs and volunteers, but also of entrepreneurs. This group will include leaders, fol-lowers, helpers –each with a specific, major or modest, contribution. You have experts on technology, permits, sponsorship, safety. One person may be good with their hands, another at organizing, yet another at making the message go viral on social media. That mix of characters, skills and talents may clash. Usually you will find some key figures –prime movers and people with diplomatic skills– that need to be cherished, because they are the ones who make it all hang together.”

In relation to community initiatives of this kind, authorities need to maintain a degree of administrative and bureaucrat-ic distance; at the same time, they must also be involved. According to him, a one-size-fits-all approach does not work, “because one doer is not the same as another.” What more experienced doers need most is back-up from administrators and civil servants at crucial points. However, people who occasionally carry out a project in the community are more likely to need approachable community professionals who are ‘there’ for the initiator and the initiative, but do not take over the proj-ect. Administrators have to realize that people are not just tools for achieving policy goals; it is recommended that they show genuine interest and engage in a dialogue about what the local residents themselves want to achieve and learn.

goveRnment: let go, But encouRage!According to Van de Wijdeven, the government has exaggerated its own importance. “A lot more can be achieved through people’s own strength than was expected. Gradually municipalities have started to realize and respond to this by providing community budgets, grants and vouchers for neighborhoods, especially in relation to public space and quality of life. This

Democracy by doingtspB


social innovation

‘active citizenship’ package will continue to grow, particularly as regards health care. Democracy of action means more than just volunteering. It is relatively new and therefore a matter of trial and error.”

Self-organization of this kind means that something that has traditionally been a government task can be partially taken over by ‘action democrats’. “Democracy of action is focused on doing,” says Van de Wijdeven. “It’s about persuading people by showing them, not by talking. This can be very difficult for public servants and local authorities to deal with, because it means they have to relinquish their traditional –sometimes patriarchal– role and concentrate more on encouraging. Sometimes it is not easy to get through those layers of tradition. What is needed is a change in behavior and for authorities to have confidence in mem-bers of the community. Doers don’t want to worry about rules, they want to get something done without having to deal with too much red tape. Authorities also need to be less constrained by an ideal of equality. Not everyone wants a petanque ground.”

pRoviding suppoRtPublic servants, the municipal council and aldermen should therefore

take a back seat, but continue to provide support. ‘… too much consultation, for instance with the council, and constant checking up about procedures is lethal to the pace of the

action initiatives (and often also to the doers’ mood),’writes Van de Wijdeven in his thesis.

The term ‘democracy of action’ resonated because of its specific connotation of “stop talking and start doing.” Several years ago, advisory bodies such as the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) and later the government embraced Van de Wijdeven’s democracy of action as a supplement to repre-sentative democracy through the ballot box. Van de Wijdeven: “Direct determination of your own local

living environment is an essential feature of a different kind of democracy. What people achieve in their own communities to solve social issues does not have to be done via the detour of parliamentary democracy. Democracy of action is a form of a sharing in decision-making simply by doing. It goes beyond discussing solutions, as in old-style public consultation or the more modern interactive policy-making.” At present the term ‘participation society’ is very much in vogue as a result of its use in the Speech from the Throne. That gave the whole idea a lot of impetus.

Democracy by doing An involved government must be able to let go ted van de wijdeven (1977) works at the Tilburg School for Politics and Public Administration (TSPb).

1 Ted van de Wijdeven:

Doe-democratie, over actief

burgerschap in stadswijken

(Democracy in Action: on

active citizenship in neighbor-

hoods), Eburon, 2012.

www.tilburguniversity.edu/tspb2 Ted van de Wijdeven, Casper geurtz,

Making Citizen Participation Work: The

Challenging Search for New Forms of

Local Democracy in The Netherlands.

Article in Local Government Studies,

Vol. 36, issue 4, 2010.

http://tilburguniversity.edu/tspb

tilburg research - 2014 nr 126

Foreign employees in the agricultural sector

are vulnerable to exploitation.

CSR toolkit against human trafficking and exploitation


Human trafficking in agriculture and horticulture, hotels and construc-tion? Yes. “Human trafficking and exploitation is best known and occurs on the largest scale in the sex industry, but in the Netherlands the agricultural sector is in second place,” says Conny Rijken. She is Associate Professor of European Criminal Law and the Protection of Human Rights and a fel-low of victimology research institute INTERVICT. Over eighteen months, researchers in seven EU countries worked in a similar fashion on CSR toolkits for three sectors: agriculture, hotels and construction. The Tilburg team examined the agricultural sector. “Our focus was therefore on raising awareness. If we gave a presentation for employers which included an account of a case where a farmer imposed fines for poor work and kept parallel accounts on a piece-rate basis, the employers would recognize such things as existing prac-tices. But they would be quite shocked if we told them that the court regards an accumulation of such practices as human trafficking.”

The current legal definition of labor exploitation is vague –it is under debate. What is certain is that it means that the boundaries of good employment practice are crossed to the detriment of workers. In Europe, labor exploitation occurs

on a large scale; in most cases foreign laborers are involved, such as Eastern Europeans hired temporarily to harvest crops. They depend on the employer to a greater extent than other employees –not only because of the language barrier, but also as regards housing and health expenses. This makes them vulnerable to abuse.

outlining the exact ResponsiBilities FoR companiesRijken worked on the project together with two colleagues from the department of European and International Public Law. In collaboration with Professor of International Human Rights Law Nicola Jägers, Rijken has applied the international human rights framework as regards corporate responsibility (the Ruggie Framework and the UN Guiding Principles), to the human trafficking situation. Their goal is to prevent labor exploitation. They were able to formulate practical steps for corporate responsi-bility throughout the whole project. In conjunction with Eefje de Volder, PhD student in International Security Law, Rijken went on to analyze the agricultur-al sector in the Netherlands, particularly the labor-intensive part of it which is subject to strong competitive pressure. They encountered twelve kinds of labor relationships, ranging from perfectly fine to illegal, along with the grey area in between. It became clear that there are many stakeholders, the legislation and

regulations are complicated and the risks are high. Apart from the government, the sector itself has also taken some measures against exploitation, but that is really just a beginning.

“It was a big advantage that we came from an academic institution and were in an independent position,” the research-ers believe. “That was why we were able to get a good overview and listen to everyone. At one of our meetings all the stakeholders were there together –some-thing that happens rarely. Because we were non-partisan, we were able to push things through that otherwise would not have made it.” The sector was happy that the academic world was helping them to find solutions. For the researchers it was a major challenge to translate the inter-national human rights framework into

social innovation

A guide for employers, a card listing employees’ rights and a Statement of Good Employment Practice to put on the wall. This Corporate Social Responsibility toolkit for the Dutch agriculture and horticulture sector is the result of a European project against human trafficking and exploitation, led by Conny Rijken of the Tilburg Law School and funded by the European Commission.

Corine Schouten ‘Just five cents less for a basket of strawberries may mean exploitation –but as a consumer you are not aware of that’

tls


measures for people who actually get their feet dirty. Along the way they dis-covered gaps in the current instruments for combating abuse and exploitation.

Since the ZLTO (Southern Netherlands Agriculture and Horticulture Organization) was already working on a good employment practices campaign, for them the timing of the project against exploitation and human traffick-ing was just right. Rijken and De Volder devised instruments to make employers aware of illicit practices and to give them guidelines to avoid such practices. The ZLTO will use these instruments to roll out its campaign. This practical toolkit will enable employers and employees to jointly sign a statement guaranteeing that exploitation will not occur and to hang that statement on the wall where

it can be seen. A handy card for employ-ees sets out in plain language what their rights are and where they can ask questions and lodge complaints. Also, a guide provides employers with an under-standing of good employment practice from the perspective of preventing exploitation and trafficking.

RetaileRs and consumeRs aRe still haRdly involved Nevertheless, exploitation in agriculture remains a difficult problem to tackle. “It is striking that up till now retailers and consumers have hardly been involved at all,” says De Volder. “CSR does not nec-essarily lead to higher prices. Paying five cents more for a basket of mushrooms may be enough.” However, some super-markets are already profiling themselves by selling fair trade fruit and vegetables, and recently effective measures have been taken for the mushroom growing industry through the Fair Produce label. While this is just the tip of the iceberg, it is encouraging to see that fruit and veg-

etable distributors seem to want to take a stand for fair trade in agriculture and horticulture.

Rijken and De Volder have just complet-ed the project with a meeting with their international project partners and repre-sentatives of the European Commission, who will take the results of the project into account in future policymaking. They are still working on ensuring the sustainability of their work. There is no doubt they are satisfied with their role. “As academics, independent and non-partisan, we have observed that a role as catalyst and initiator of new pro-cesses fits us like a glove. The university can be a key partner in social innova-tion.”

social innovation

‘A role as catalyst and initiator of new processes fits us academics like a glove’

Nicola Jägers and Conny rijken:

Prevention of Human Trafficking for Labor

Exploitation: The Role of Corporations.

in Northwestern Journal of International

Human Rights, Volume 12 issue 1, 2014.

twitter.com/Connyrijken01

twitter.com/NicolaJagers

Conny Rijken tells stakeholders from

the agricultural and horticultural sector

about labor exploitation at a meeting at

the Tilburg Sustainability Center.

tls

http://twitter.com/ConnyRijken01

http://twitter.com/NicolaJagers


Start unique Augmented reality lab Tilburg University is going to build a virtual reality training and research laboratory which will start to operate on the university campus later this year. This lab, which will be unique in Europe, will provide opportunities for lectures and research in virtual, simulated environments. It will enable students to attend lectures in –for example– a courtroom, a boardroom or a hospital. It has been partly financed by truck manufacturing company DAF and will be named the DAF Technology Lab.

The lab will provide researchers with the opportunity to conduct exper-iments in the field of virtual reality. ‘Augmented reality’ means the projection of elements of the virtual world into the physical world, with the student or researcher pretending the two worlds are one. The Tilburg lab will offer a wide variety of possibilities, ranging from taking part in a court case to the interaction of robots with patients, registering brain activity, gaming, attending a board meeting or visiting an operating the-atre. In this way students and researchers will learn how to ask questions and find answers in real life about how people think, feel and behave in various settings. Students will therefore also be better prepared for their future positions in society.

There are only a few augmented reality laboratories in Europe and most of them focus mainly on technology. To date these labs have paid practically no attention to fields involving behavior, such as economics, law, the social sciences and humanities –precisely those fields in which Tilburg University specializes. Moreover, these labs are rarely if ever used for teaching purposes. The Tilburg lab is being set up with the help of Professor of Cognitive Psychology and Artificial Intelligence Max Louwerse of the Tilburg School of Humanities’ Tilburg Center for Cognition and Communication (TiCC). The areas on which TiCC focuses include artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, cognitive models and (serious) gaming.

tilburguniversity.edu/ticc

social innovation news

twitter.com/Connyrijken01

twitter.com/NicolaJagers

‘Sustainable policy requires turnaround in public administration’Current public administration in the Netherlands is inadequate. Government and other administrative authorities are ill-equipped to cope with the challenges in the healthcare, employment, housing and banking sectors in a sustainable way. This is what Professor Roel in ’t Veld asserted in his inaugural address at Tilburg University.

In his address, Roel in ’t Veld outlined how sustain-able development in a knowledge democracy like the Netherlands should be governed. Technological devel-opments have an impact on politics, the media and aca-demia –the three ‘pillars of the knowledge democracy’, which in the Netherlands are very closely entwined and lead to internal friction. Administrators must have a keen eye for developments in society, respect the characteristics of this society and be able to cope with tension and uncertainties.

In addition to representative democracy, in which elected politicians govern the country, we also see the rise of the ‘participation democracy’, in which citizens, entrepreneurs and organizations have a say and even implement initiatives to achieve collective utilities (such as energy cooperatives). According to In ’t Veld, successful administration would merge these two types of governance: the representative bodies should have their say first, after which a participatory process should take place, possibly with another review by the representative bodies. This is why a ‘turnaround’ in public administration is needed, he says.

In ’t Veld delivered his inaugural address on 7 February, on the occasion of the establishment of the UNESCO Chair of Sustainability and Governance at the Tilburg Sustainability Center. As Chair of the Social Innovation Task Force, he has kindled the social innovation fire at Tilburg University, as he writes in

his acknowledgments. A few other members of the Task Force also feature in this issue (Dirk Brounen, Ton Wilthagen, Hans Mommaas).

Ro

el in ‘t V

eldTransgovernance D

uurzame ontw

ikkeling in een kennisdemocratie

Rede uitgesproken door

Roel in ‘t Veld

TransgovernanceDuurzame ontwikkeling in een kennisdemocratie

140007_oratie_In 't Veld_omslag.indd 1 23-01-14 13:20

http://tilburguniversity.edu/ticc

http://twitter.com/ConnyRijken01

http://twitter.com/NicolaJagers


VAlEriE FriSSEN

Worldwide, social innovation receives a great deal of attention, but so far in the Netherlands that attention has been fairly limited. This is not only true of policymakers; there is also plenty of work for researchers to do in this area. It would be a good idea for Dutch universities to pay more attention to social innovation, if only because we do not really know much about what can be achieved through social innovation. In other words –this is an outstanding research challenge!

Social innovation tries to tackle social issues by making the best use of the strengths of the various parties in a network – companies working together towards sustain-able growth, academics and professional practitioners joining forces for healthcare innovation, a social enter-prise such as Tony’s Chocolonely, energy cooperatives, a veggie garden on the roof of an office building or a supermarket run by villagers. According to José Barroso, until recently President of the European Commission, Europe has a long and strong tradition of social innovation. We are a continent of creative social entrepreneurs who come up with solutions for all kinds of social problems.

It is not only the European Commission that stresses the importance of social innovation; in the UK and Australia policy on social innovation also has high pri-ority. Recently the Dutch government has shown a little more interest. The ministers of Economic Affairs and of Education, Culture and Science asked the Advisory Council for Science and Technology Policy (AWT) for advice on this matter. In January 2014 The Power of Social Innovation was published. The AWT’s main rec-ommendations were to embrace social innovation and put it on the agenda, to make room for social exper-iments and to make social innovation part of policy focusing on the participation society and on knowledge and innovation.

How can a university contribute to social innovation? Firstly, of course, by doing research on social innovation and what it can yield for society. There is a need for an overview of the field in the Netherlands, and for long-term analyses and research into the effects of social innovation. But in addition to this, academics them-selves are also participants in social innovation: they can make connections with innovative networks in their environment and help to find solutions to social chal-lenges. In this way academics themselves can contribute to the strength of social innovation. The valorization of research and knowledge is becoming increasingly important, which is why we should assess researchers’ participation in partnerships which tackle social chal-lenges and reward them accordingly.

Valerie Frissen (1960) is Principal Scientist at research organization TNO and Professor of IT and Social Change at Erasmus University Rotterdam. She is Managing Director of CLICKNL, the Dutch Creative Industries’ knowledge and innovation network. She is also a member of the Advisory Council for Science and Technology Policy (AWT). She was one of the speakers at the symposium titled ‘All Innovation Counts’, held on 27 February at Tilburg University.

twitter.com/vfrissen

tHe proposition bY valerie frissen

‘Participation in social innovation is one of the tasks of an academic. Efforts in this area should also be assessed and rewarded by the university.’

‘Social innovation as a task of academics’

social innovation guest column

http://twitter.com/vfrissen


tHe proposition bY valerie frissen

‘Participation in social innovation is one of the tasks of an academic. Efforts in this area should also be assessed and rewarded by the university.’

diRK BRounen, Professor of Real Estate Economics, Vice-Dean of TIAS School for Business and Society

“i agree with this statement. For a Tilburg academic it actually comes naturally to be a social innovator, since our research at Tilburg is always related to social themes and good academic research leads to new questions and answers –and therefore innovation. Apart from that, i see the Cobbenhage approach in the workplace at Tilburg university –not just doing research for research’s sake, but also translating it into practical measures and contributing to the pub-lic debate. This should be the standard Tilburg approach, so that the outside world realizes what treasures are hidden within the grounds of our university.”

coRien pRins, Professor of Law and Informatization and Dean of Tilburg Law School

“As far as i’m concerned the conviction that knowledge development is part of their social mission is essential for an academic. This means that using our evidence-based knowledge we should contribute to think-ing through social innovation and developing the knowledge required to achieve it. but this mission also means that in our research we must draw inspiration from the developments that define that society. on the basis of the conviction that the quality of research is not compromised by serving society, Tilburg law School has stated in its new Strategic Plan that it will acknowledge and value contributions to social innova-tion more explicitly than in the past.”

philip eiJlandeR, Professor of Legislative

Studies and Rector of Tilburg University“you can’t just say that participa-tion in social innovation is one of the tasks of every academic. That’s going too far. Those tasks include teaching, research and knowledge transfer for the benefit of society. research and knowledge transfer in particular can lay the foundation for achieving innovation, including social innovation. but that is not all that is needed: it also requires cooperation with social partners. universities can certainly stimulate and value that contribution.”

max louweRse, Professor of Cognitive Psychology and Artificial Intelligence, Tilburg Center for Cognition and Communication, Tilburg University

“Academics should certainly reflect on the social relevance of their research. However, it is very important that this should not be done at any cost. Fundamental academic research –even if its social relevance is not immediately obvious– is essential. With many research questions it is not until later that the answers provide clear social solutions. Moreover, social issues often demand quick answers, regardless of the quality of those answers. Academic research must ensure that answers are and remain sound and well substantiated. We need to reflect on social relevance and social innovation, but it is undesirable for social relevance and social innovation to dictate aca-demic agendas.”

eRic van damme, Professor of Economics, Tilburg School of Economics and Management

“Whether or not social innovation should be a core activ-ity –in addition to research and teaching– is a question that requires serious academic debate. i think that valori-zation may be an inherent aspect of academic research; it should not be seen as a separate core activity. Not all researchers should be required to be concerned with val-orization. The focus of valorization is short-term, whereas much academic research is long-term and requires more time and further processing to mature. research leads to further research that will eventually be ‘valorized’; as far as i know, there is no evidence that ‘direct valorization’ is of greater benefit to society than ‘indirect valorization’.”

32

‘It’s in everyone’s interest to make the pension sector stronger’

tilburg research - 2014 nr 1

director casper van ewijk of researcH institute netspar:

The amount we receive in our pension, the degree of solidarity between generations, investment policy: these are all examples of the serious issues facing the Netherlands. Netspar is a new style of research institute that aims to promote close cooperation with external partners and to help increase societal awareness through research, education, and networking. Director, Casper van Ewijk: “Netspar is not there to come up with ready-made solutions, but we aim to advance the discussion through our analysis.”




Netspar is a network of smart people who specialize in the fields of aging, pensions and social renewal. “Netspar has had a clear impact on the academic research agenda in the Netherlands,” says Professor Casper van Ewijk, who has been the Director of Netspar since October 2013 and was previously deputy director of the Central Planning Bureau (CPB). “More and more economists are turning their attention to issues related to old age. At Netspar we are encouraging this by allocating some of our budget to research grants in the field of pensions –in the Netherlands, but sometimes also internationally. This is a great way to link the academic research agenda with the social agenda.”The initiative for the Network for Studies on Pensions, Aging and Retirement came from Tilburg economist Lans Bovenberg. He was awarded an NWO Spinoza prize in 2003 for his economic models for environmental taxation and spent his prize money on setting up a new style of research institute in the field of pensions and aging. He wanted to foster coop-eration with the private sector and the government, as well as with other univer-

sities and research institutions. As well as research, Netspar also organizes Master’s programs and executive education. The results of its research are shared with the sector through working groups and proj-ect groups, master classes and seminars. All of this makes Netspar a role model for social innovation. Netspar is funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the government, but its financial backers also include several Dutch pension providers and insurance companies, regulatory authorities and consultancy firms. Private partners also contribute to the funding of chairs for professors. The universities also help to pay ‘in kind’ by providing personnel and research funding. “It’s a nice mix of public and private funding,” says Van Ewijk.

maintaining scientiFic impaRtialityWith so many stakeholders, it is vital to ensure that scientific research is conduct-ed in an objective manner. “Our partners have an impact on the subjects we inves-tigate, but not on the outcomes of our

research,” says Van Ewijk. “Our research-ers are completely independent in what they publish.” New socially important subjects for research are put out to tender through open calls and an international scientific committee assesses the qualities of the researchers who put themselves forward. Then, the Partner Research Council, which includes representatives from all the partners, ranks the proposals according to their relevance. It is precisely this broad-based system that makes the institute more independent.Indeed, the partners are not always happy with Netspar’s conclusions. “But as a sec-tor, you have to be strong in organizing your own criticism,” argues Van Ewijk. “Revealing weaknesses in the existing system is an inherent aspect of research into social innovation. It creates a tension, but ultimately it is in everyone’s interest to work together to make the sector stron-ger.” It’s certainly true that recently there has been a great deal of criticism of the weaknesses in the existing system of pen-sions. “We are working hard –partly at the request of the partners– to help move the discussion forward and make clear which issues we agree and disagree about.”

social innovation

Marion de Boo

caspeR van ewiJK:

Casper van Ewijk: ‘Uncovering the weaknesses in the current pension system is inherent to research into social innova-tion’



maKing people moRe ‘pensions-awaRe’Social innovation can occur at a range of levels in society. “Fieldwork is not such an obvious choice for economists,” says Van Ewijk. “Netspar is mainly active at the national level, working with professionals and policy makers to bring about better pensions products. There is currently a lot of discussion about how you can reach people and make them more ‘pen-sions-aware’. How do you explain the pen-sions problem and get people thinking about their retirement? Only 7 percent of the population of the Netherlands know much about their own pension. On the one hand there have been calls to make the pension system less rigid and to give people more control over their own retire-ment and more freedom of choice. But at the same time people are not well-in-formed, and sometimes take some very bad decisions.”Another problem relates to solidarity between generations. Young people pay out a lot in pension contributions, but what will they get back later on in life? To find a way into this Gordian knot, a proj-ect has been set up to look at the various alternatives in collaboration with the sec-tor. “Netspar is not there to come up with ready-made solutions, but we try to

advance the discussion by analyzing the issues. Of course, the ultimate choices you make will also depend on your politi-cal standpoint and what role you envisage for individuals and for the collective,” says Van Ewijk.

the shiFting ReseaRch agendaIn the face of poor financial prospects, several pension funds have recently decid-ed to cut the pensions they pay out to their beneficiaries and scale back their future pensions obligations. “Netspar has made a significant con-tribution to the new rules on financial supervision that are currently being drafted. Meanwhile, our research agenda is already shifting to the next challenge: helping individuals to prepare for their old age. There is a need for better commu-nication about pensions and people need more flexibility and control over their own pension pot during the pay-out phase.” Van Ewijk sees the Dutch pension system as rather paternalistic. In simple terms, what it comes down to is that working people are obliged to pay pension contri-butions throughout their entire working lives, and in many schemes this money disappears into one large pensions pot. All they can do is wait and see how much is still left over for them when they stop working. Maybe the average Dutchman or woman has so little awareness of pensions because they do not have any influence over it –we have not done any research into that question yet. But in many other European countries, pensions are more focused on the individualized arrange-ments and people have more freedom to quickly access part of the money they have saved in their pension to make provisions for their old age. For example, they might want to renovate their home and make it more suitable for their old age, or to pay off what remains of their mortgage. “In the U.K. there is now a proposal to release

the entire pension in one go and pay it out as soon as the individual reaches retire-ment age,” explains Van Ewijk. “But that does not seem like a good idea to me. We would like to identify a good middle way. Plus, there are other issues that overlap with this one: the way that the future housing market and long-term care are organized. There are some interesting similarities.”

how investment decisions inFluence pension FundsOne much-debated issue relates to wheth-er and how the pension funds should help to mitigate the economic crisis. Netspar has set up some major research projects to look at the impact of the pension funds on our economy. One of Van Ewijk’s own findings was that countries with strong, well-funded pension funds have a stron-ger economy than countries without. “But Netspar has no opinion on the question of whether pension funds should invest more inside the Netherlands. One advan-tage would be that this would strengthen capital in the Netherlands, but a disad-vantage is that then your investments

Researchers who receive Netspar money, must make free suffi-cient time to join in the public debate

BaRt Boon, senioR manageR stRategy oF achmea:

‘Netspar has given an enor-mous boost to policy-relevant knowledge about pensions’

social innovation


are highly concentrated in one country, with all the risks that entails. These are the kind of considerations that we investigate. We carry out fairly technical financial and econometric research into the right investment mix and dealing with the risks of inflation. But we also focus on the uncertainties associated with increasing life expectancy, for example. Johan Mackenbach, Professor in Public Health at Erasmus University Rotterdam, recently received funding from Netspar to research this question. The key question is of course whether we really will live longer and healthier lives in the future, so that we can retire later in life.” Researchers who receive funding from Netspar are required to devote sufficient time to the wider societal debate. As well as writing scientific publications, they

also write industry papers and policy papers. “This means they have to be con-stantly attracting people to take an inter-est. Younger researchers will often have to give up their free time for this. For estab-lished researchers this is somewhat easier to do during working hours. Fortunately, our university sees valorization as very important. And naturally, the School of Economics is very aware of that too.”

a Boost to policy-Relevant Knowledge What do Netspar’s partners think of Netspar? Bart Boon, a senior strategy manager at Achmea is excited about the partnership. “Netspar is primarily a network that brings together scientists, industry and government to develop, share and access expertise on pensions. It

is a place where well-informed discussions on pensions can take place, which means we can all take our thinking one step further. All this means that Netspar has given a tremendous boost to policy-relevant knowledge about pen-sions. The challenge is to demonstrate that in fact there are many more things that we agree on than sometimes appears to be the case. We need to make sure that we do not delay taking the steps that need to be taken until we have reached consensus on every last detail of the policy.” Innovation manager Niels Kortleve of PGGM is also happy with Netspar. “Several of my colleagues at PGGM are helping to work on research with Netspar. Some are even doing doctoral research. It’s a good idea to allow the partners to set the research agenda. And for people who have already been working in the field for five years or so, Netspar offers some good educational programs. Incidentally, I also believe that economists, and especially micro-economists, marketing specialists and the like, need to do high-quality fieldwork in order to understand the behavior of consum-ers properly. In the past Netspar did not focus on that enough, but that is changing now.”Kortleve also mentions that practitioners are increasingly co-authoring publications. “That certainly has an effect; their way of writing is different, more relevant to policy. And the research itself is more sound because of the use of data acquired from the partners. The data is always pre-competitive data that which could never be traced back to individual part-ners via the publications.”“Good scientists are idiosyncratic,” concludes Kortleve. “But previously these discussions were taking place in the newspapers too often. Focusing on and exaggerating the differences is not usually a very constructive approach. Now we are fortunate that we have a good plat-form to promote dialogue and where we can find each other.”

Niels Vermeer (CPb, Tiu, Netspar), Mauro

Mastrogiacomo (DNb, Vu, Netspar) and Arthur van

Soest (Tiu, Netspar), Demanding occupations and the

retirement age in the Netherlands, Netspar Discussion

Papers, 2014.

twitter.com/Netspar

See the website for more publications: www.netspar.nl

http://twitter.com/Netspar

http://www.netspar.nl


Lively senior citizens keep their motors running


“I certainly acknowledge the ongoing secularization of the Netherlands –includ-ing among young people– and for the time being this trend will continue. I’ve noticed that it really bothers me when people –often elderly people– pigeonhole young people and only say negative things about them. Yes, there are lots of young people who are ‘religiously illiterate’, who have no idea what the church is or what religion is. But they still have things that inspire them, that give meaning to their lives and that they value. I find that intriguing. As a researcher, I start with the young people themselves: what do they have? Is it something we might call reli-gion? And how can you build a bridge to those young people on the basis of your religion? That makes more sense than looking at what has disappeared and all sit-ting down and weeping because religion is threatening to be lost.

Every five years we do a survey among 2000 secondary school students about religion and what inspires them. In this way we follow and identify trends. It soon becomes clear that certain words are no longer appropriate for the respondents. This is why I add a new question to my survey each time. Our language, our way of looking at things, our conceptual framework –they are no longer adequate. Researchers also often think inside their own little boxes. We tend to ask questions such as “Do you go to church?”, “Do you read the bible?” –that sort of thing. But those little boxes don’t fit any more. Soon I am going to examine the survey with a group of young people.

However, as the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis recently made known, there is also a group of young people who are strongly connected with the church. They are growing increasingly ‘fortissimo’, as I discuss in my book Handbook Youth and Religion (Handboek Jongeren en Religie). These young people consciously choose the unique identity of their religion. They clearly feel the need to draw their answers from it and base their life choices on it. You see this both with Muslim and with Protestant and Catholic young people. I think it’s quite extraordinary to see this among young people in these times.

In my report Inspire Youth (Jongeren Inspireren) I focus on youth workers and teachers of religion and spirituality. I want to offer them tools. If a religion teacher wants to teach the whole class something about religion, he or she will have to take a wide range into account –from active churchgoers to the religiously illiterate. The challenge is to transfer knowledge without trying to convince– because if you do that, certain students will have an allergic reaction. You can only inspire young people from your heart. Teachers can only succeed if they are there because they are passionate about what they are doing and if they have open minds. Young peo-ple sense it when you’re authentic. That means you have to be connected to your own source and passion. If you face the outside world on that basis, you can reach everyone – including young people. [DvdV/IR]

‘religiOus BOxes are Outdated’

researcH portrait

Monique C.H. van Dijk-groeneboer,

Handboek Jongeren en Religie. (Handbook

Youth and Religion), Publisher Parthenon, 2010.

Monique van Dijk-groeneboer and bernice

brijan, Kerk uit zicht?Jongeren inspireren!

(Inspire Youth), 2013. Digital book (in Dutch)

available upon request from Monique van Dijk-

groeneboer.

MOnique van dijk-grOeneBOer

Assistant Professor of the Sociology of religion

Tilburg School of Catholic Theology

Research subjectYouth culture and theology

”

tst


“Nowadays the patient wants to know exactly what healthcare is provided –whether it is good, bad, people-oriented. And to an increasing extent hospitals have to deal with qualitative performance indicators. That means significant chang-es in policy,” Bart Berden states.

The major players in healthcare are the patient, the healthcare insurer and the healthcare provider. The provider (that is, the doctor, the hospital, the nurse) delivers healthcare to the patient. The hospital and the insurer make arrange-ments about what healthcare is delivered to the patient and what healthcare is pur-chased. These days insurers can exclude providers because they “do not perform sufficiently.” Patients choose healthcare insurers on the basis of the packages they offer.

“In the past we ourselves used to determine, professionally and in good conscience, what healthcare would be offered for and with the patient. Then the insurer would simply purchase that healthcare. That autonomy has now been exchanged for accountability. It’s now about accountability instead of autonomy. If we as a hospital meet all the conditions, that still does not mean that the insurer will buy our healthcare. Take complex oncology, such as stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer or esophageal cancer. Those cancers are still treated in ten hospitals in Brabant. However, the insurer would like to reduce that to three at the most.”

“The insurers threw a stone in the pond to make us healthcare providers take steps to regulate ourselves. I can

understand that to some extent, but the healthcare insurers are still not playing their role maturely either. Look at the closure of the emergency services, such as those of the new and fully equipped hospital in Sittard. The consequences of the closure of an emergency department like this for the hospital and for patients are huge. This was obviously not thought through enough. It is hard to explain to people in a village or town why they should suddenly have to travel for twenty minutes instead of five to receive emer-gency care.”

is theRe a BetteR, smaRteR oR diFFeRent way?“Good hospital management means you must be constantly on the lookout for cost control and cost reduction; are there better, smarter or different ways to do things? That’s in our genes. Take health-care that is not medically indicated: in the U.S., Europe and the Netherlands, 20 to 35 percent of our diagnostic and ther-apeutic interventions are simply unnec-essary. So just stop carrying them out, you might say, but it’s not as simple as that, because professional practitioners are focused on action, are rewarded for that, and patients also often think

The (non-)assertive patient, the compassionate care provider and the critical insurerA great deal is changing in the relationship between doctor and patient and between healthcare provider and healthcare insurer. Bart Berden, senior executive at the Elisabeth TweeSteden hospital in Tilburg, talks about these changes and the response to them.these changes and the response to them.

Healtcare interview

Clemens van Diek/Koen Aarts


‘Keeping a pilot light burning is very ineffective and inefficient’


that more treatment is better for them. Apparently many patients are unable to say ‘I don’t need to be treated any more, I think it’s more sensible to stop’. We can still achieve a lot in this area, along with healthcare insurers and patients. If something is not necessary, we should not do it. We need to make people under-stand this, or to put it more strongly, patients themselves need to stop wanting unnecessary treatment. When it comes to end-of-life care, our professionals often know very well when a complex treatment like chemotherapy is no longer necessary. However, we need to take the time to discuss this with the patient.”

tRaveling much FuRtheR is customeR-unFRiendly“We serve a population of about half a million people in the Tilburg-Waalwijk region, which means we have to provide a wide package –first aid, breast cancer, diabetes, appendicitis. If the TweeSteden and St Elisabeth hospitals had not

merged, we would have lost our breast cancer care. A huge number of patients would have had to travel much further, to Eindhoven, Breda and beyond. Extremely customer-unfriendly. However, it also means that healthcare in Tilburg needs to be state of the art. This is the situation we have created.”The Tilburg merged hospital has three primary focus areas that extend far beyond the borders of the province, with a potential catchment area of 2.7 million Dutch people. These areas are neurology and neurosurgery, cardiology and trau-matology. “Severe accident victims often have brain or head injuries. Because of our neuro focus, people come to Tilburg from all corners of the province. They know that we are the best for neurology. Because of the merger we have enough volume to be able to provide the full

range of services. “We shed treatments for which we have too little volume, expe-rience or training. With gastric cancer and gastric surgery we are just on the borderline. We can only keep providing these treatments if we double the num-ber of patients. We discuss primary focus areas with other hospitals in Brabant. We don’t do skin cancer anymore. Pancreas surgery is rare and too complex. Keeping a pilot light burning is very ineffective and inefficient. Once a decision has been made to withdraw a treatment, the entire team is relocated, from intake to surgery and post-operative care.”

seeing the whole peRson“We are getting bigger and bigger and therefore a bit less accessible. That increase in scaling is more than com-pensated for by our levels of knowledge

The Compassionate Hospital stands for proximity, attentiveness and compassion. Professional loving care policy is fairly unique to Tilburg.

Healtcare interview

‘If we hadn’t merged, we would have lost our breast cancer care’


Bart Berden is Chair of the board of Directors of the merged St Elisabeth

TweeSteden Hospital in Tilburg. He also holds several supervisory posi-

tions in healthcare and is Professor of organization Development in

Hospital Care (an endowed chair) at TiAS School for business and Society

of Tilburg university/Eindhoven university of Technology.

Follow Tilburg university’s research on health care: www.tilburguniversity.edu/topic/healthcare/

and expertise, informed by the latest insights. We pay a lot of attention to recognizability, proximity and loving care. We invest in improving basic skills: how to interact with patients, what it means to be in hospital. We need to pay attention to the whole person.”“That’s why we started the ‘Compassionate Hospital’ program. That may sound a bit airy-fairy, but you really need to address proximity, attention

and compassion. As a professional, how much weight do you give to the patient’s perception? How do you approach and treat the patient? There is an extensive research program associated with this. We learn a lot from that. We assume that patients are increasingly assertive and more inclined to stand up for themselves, and that they look up everything on the internet. It turns out that this is not so much the case as we thought. Patients still find themselves in a very vulnera-ble and dependent position. Education, training, giving each other feedback, observing each other –all of these ele-ments are necessary to get closer to the patient. In this regard, our Tilburg hos-pital is fairly unique. Not that other insti-tutions don’t do this, but we have made it a special focus, thought about it in detail and implemented it in practice. It is real-ly made concrete in the way we talk to each other, observe each other and train each other. This is our long-term policy.”

compassionate hospital campaign In conjunction with Tilburg University, the St Elisabeth TweeSteden Hospital is working on professional ‘loving’ care, with the ambition of becoming the most compassionate hospital in the Netherlands. Compassionate care means a doctor who treats you and also wants to know how you are coping with your illness, a physiotherapist who empathiz-es with what it’s like to have no strength in your hands, or a nurse who gives you your medication and asks how you are really doing –not as a patient, but as a human being. What does the illness mean to him or her? Compassionate care means doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers who truly seek contact with and pay attention to the patient. In healthcare a lot of emphasis is placed on technique and efficiency, while the human aspect is often forgotten. The St Elisabeth TweeSteden Hospital is the first to tackle that problem in a new way with its Lief Ziekenhuis [The Compassionate Hospital] campaign.

See also: http://ethicsofcare.org/

http://tilburguniversity.edu/topic/healthcare/

http://ethicsofcare.org/


Tilburg University, 08.30hrs symposium on psychology and economics organization: Tilburg institute for behavioral Economics research

Tilburg University, 15.00hrs opening academic year about ‘the region – a world to be won’ Speakers: Philip Eijlander, Jan Hommen, Koen becking, Ernst Hirsch ballin and ruud lubbers.

Amsterdam seminar on scientific integrity: ‘improving scientific practice: dealing with the human factors’ organization: Jelte Wicherts together with the university of Amsterdam (uvA).

The Hague 1st world conference on statelessness. organization: Victimology institute iNTErViCT in cooperation with uNHCr.

Amsterdam, 10.00hrs conference war and peace. With renowned international politicians, diplomats, historians, philosophers and critical thinkers. organization: Nexus institute.

Tilburg University, 18.00hrs night university – national science week. a program themed around ‘robotization’ organization: Academic Forum, Education & research Marketing, Science Café Tilburg.

Tilburg University, 15.00hrs dies natalis, This celebration will be marked by the 25th anniversary of CentEr, with the awardance of Honorary

Doctorates to John list (by Aart de Zeeuw) and Dan levinthal (by Xavier Martin).

agenda/colopHon

Tilburg research is a magazine for spe-cial-interest groups about the research at Tilburg university, the Netherlands, and its impact on society. Follow our scientific news via: @tilburgresearch

puBlisheR: Education & research Marketing Tilburg university

managing editoR: Clemens van Diek

editoR-in-chieF: ingrid ramaan

contRiButing editoRs: Tineke bennema, Marion de boo, reggy van den bosch, Clemens van Diek, Wim van de Donk, Valerie Frissen, Marten van de Wier, ingrid

ramaan, Corine Schouten, Diahann Van de Vijver

photogRapheRs: ben bergmans (p.10, 13, 20, 21), Erik van der burgt (p.16), Dolph Cantrijn (cover, p.18, 35, 36), Elizabeth Ziekenhuis (p.39, 40-41), Steven Ensering (p.30), Wiebe Kiestra /HH (p.32) nunosilvaphotography/Shutterstock (p.12), Prisma (p.17),Wilfried Scholtes (p.3, 4, 14, 15, 26), Jack Tummers (p.28), Christiaan Westgeest (p.22, 23).

illustRatoRs: fyzhou (p.8-9), Jochem galama (p.11, 19), Marthe Kalkhoven (p.24-25)

tRanslation: Taalcentrum- Vu Amsterdam

layout and gRaphic design: beelenkamp ontwerpers

pRoduction: PrismaPrint

date: summer 2014

Tilburg research magazine is also available online: www.tilburguniversity.edu/ researchmagazine

Tilburg universityPostbus 901535000 lE Tilburg Telefoon +31 (0)13 466 91 11www.tilburguniversity.edu

ColoPHoN

AgENDA FAll 2014 a selection of Englisch activities

www.tilburguniversity.edu/news-and-events

22 Aug

1Sept

11Sept

15-17 Sept

20Nov

1oct

20Sept

http://tilburguniversity.edu/ researchmagazine

http://tilburguniversity.edu/ researchmagazine

http://tilburguniversity.edu

http://tilburguniversity.edu/news-and-events


Facts &FiguRes

educationQuality of education, social orientation, and a strong campus feeling form the basis of our education. our green campus offers an attractive basis for foster-ing an international community where students and teachers can inspire and challenge each other and obtain knowledge.

ReseaRchour research links up with existing, complex societal issues. These require an integral approach, involving various academic disciplines. our disciplines of economics, law, catholic theology, social and behav-ioral sciences, and humanities contribute each in their own way to understanding Society.

Tilburg university contributes to solving social issues. We achieve this mainly by developing and transferring knowledge and bringing together people from various disciplines and organizations. Therefore we have invited companies, organizations, government, and citizens to work together with us to develop new insights and solutions which create value for society. We create this inno-vation by conducting research, by learning, and by understanding. Therefore, our slogan reads: Understanding Society.

on our website you can keep up with the research of Tilburg university in the following areas: Social innovation, Healthcare, religion & identity, Sustainability, Security, labor market, and Aging: www.tilburguniversity.edu/topic

enrollment (2013)

Total students 12599

Graduatestudents

Undergraduatestudents

• International graduate students

Nationalities 95

470 (7%)

780 (13%)

alumni (2013)

• Total since 1927

• international alumni

53951

2945

academic publications (2012)

Total 2049

staff (fte) (2013)

Total staff 1561

Full professor International academic staff

Academic staff

175 220 900

finances

• Total budget

• Contract funding

€ 198 mln

€ 47 mln

phd (2013)

Total PhD students 336

International 38 %PhD students

PhD degrees 132

http://tilburguniversity.edu/topic


understanding SocietyOnce I graduate, they will expect meto work, and support my folk and stateyou see, my leaders do not rule too strictlythey just request me to participate

But since all of banking and investmentis already filled with greedwith my degree I’m facing unemploymentin professions people actually need

Though I’ll never sweat like a Polish migrantit’ll still be working, you see I’m helping to keep this faulty system extantby reinvesting in it, time after time

This way, we sustain our reign of weaknessand offer the banks our great demandfeeding the beast that keeps the calmnessand that’s all there is to understand

Bob Kapteijns, Campus Poet of Tilburg University in 2014

Tilburg Research about social innovation, nr.1 2014

Documents

Transcript of Tilburg Research about social innovation, nr.1 2014