Renewed e-learning oriented IHO Cat. B Hydrography Program (2020-) in Belgium

A study onhydrographic education in Belgium carried out a few years ago,pointed out a shortage in hydrographic training. Before the introduction of the new "Postgraduate in Hydrography", most hydrographic surveyors in Belgium work in one of the main Europeandredging companies where they received additional specific hydrographic surveying training.Therefore, in 2013, a 1-year English spoken curriculum degree of "Postgraduate in Hydrography" in Belgium was accredited by the IHO (International Hydrographic Organization). Then, in 2019, a renewed curriculum, including extensive e-learning facilities, was established.The program (Cat-B) is a cooperation between the Geography Department of Ghent University and the Institute for Hydrography of the Antwerp Maritime Academy, which is the hosting institute.The aim is to combine the compulsory theoretical courses with on-the-job training provided by partners in the industry to ensure maximum competences. All courses are lectured in English, and can be taken up over several years to facilitate part-time work. These procedures allow for a qualitative and professional, yet accessible program.The theoretical courses are taught on two different campuses, the campus of the Antwerp Maritime Academy (HZS) and a campus of Ghent University (UGent) based on the available expertise and infrastructure, thus ensuring the quality. As travel time between both cities is relatively fast (ca. 45 min. travel time by public or private transport) together with the boundary condition that both locations are never used on the same day, this presents no problems to the students. The navigation related topics are taught at the Maritime Academy while the geodesy/data management/geology and ICT related topics are provided by the Geography, Geology and Informatics Departments at Ghent University

E-finance-lab at the House of Finance : about us

The financial services industry is believed to be on the verge of a dramatic [r]evolution. A substantial redesign of its value chains aimed at reducing costs, providing more efficient and flexible services and enabling new products and revenue streams is imminent. But there seems to be no clear migration path nor goal which can cast light on the question where the finance industry and its various players will be and should be in a decade from now. The mission of the E-Finance Lab is the development and application of research methodologies in the financial industry that promote and assess how business strategies and structures are shared and supported by strategies and structures of information systems. Important challenges include the design of smart production infrastructures, the development and evaluation of advantageous sourcing strategies and smart selling concepts to enable new revenue streams for financial service providers in the future. Overall, our goal is to contribute methods and views to the realignment of the E-Finance value chain. ..

Steering heterogeneous sciences in the Dutch and Italian higher education systems

This paper studies how the implementation of New Public Management reforms in Higher Education affects the academic bodies’ steering in different national systems and disciplines. It is assumed that the steering capability depends on the characteristics of each system and discipline. The work includes three case studies (two Italian universities and one Dutch university); two research institutes are selected for each university: one HS institute (either Biomedical Sciences or Physics) and one SoSc institute (Management). Evidence confirms that steering capability improves in some disciplines, while other scientific fields remain hardly steerable because the levers are weak, the interest of society and policy makers in research outcomes is small, and the reputational organisations are very influential.Higher Education, Research, Funding, Evaluation, Steering, Governance, Social Sciences, Hard Sciences, New Public Management

The Scaling Mindset – Shifting from Problems to Solutions. Insights from the Review of CCAFS Scaling Activities, 2019

In the frame of the review of CCAFS scaling activities in 2019, 21 project leaders and –implementers were interviewed about their scaling processes, touching a series of aspects that had been identified as crucial and/or critical by earlier research. Results were analysed with a systemic approach, to draw organisational learnings. The findings were validated with CCAFS core team during their Scaling Workshop in Madrid, May 2019, in which the Core Team also prioritized its programmatic areas of response. This working paper captures the main insights and learnings from both the interviews on project level, followed by the results’ analysis. It then summarized the Core Team workshop’s main discussion points and shortly outlines the programmatic areas of response that CCAFS identified. The learnings and insights on the realities of scaling agricultural innovations presented in this working paper can provide a rich basis for further synthesis and/or deeper research on the different aspects of innovation development and scaling

Improving industry science links through university technology transfer units: An analysis and a case.

Connectivity has become one of the critical success factors in generating and sustaining high-performing National Innovation Systems. Industry Science Links (ISLs) are an important dimension of this connectivity. Over the last decades, multiple insights have been gained (both from theory and practice) as to how 'effective' ISLs can be fostered through the design and the development of university-based technology transfer units. In this paper, we document and analyze the evolution of 'effective' university-based technology transfer mechanisms, towards a matrix structure allowing an active involvement of the research groups in commercial exploitation of their research findings, while specialized supporting services like intellectual property management and business plan development are centralized. We show that the establishment of:(1) an appropriate context within academia;(2) the design of stimulating incentive structures for academic research groups and,(3) the implementation of appropriate decision and monitoring processes within the interface unit itself, are critical elements in fostering 'effective' linkages between industry and the academic science base.Decision; Factors; Industry; Management; Matrix; Processes;

The alignment of organizational structure and R&D management in internationalized public company The EMBRAPA case

Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the organizational structure and R&D management alignment in an internationalized public company. Design/methodology/approach – The authors performed a descriptive qualitative research using the single case method of EMBRAPA. Findings – The results indicated that EMBRAPA organizational structure provides a structural framework for R&D management, promoting knowledge and infrastructure sharing. The internationalization, especially through LABEX, allows researchers to interact with research centers of excellence abroad. This makes strategic planning (Sistema de Inteligência Estratégico da EMBRAPA – Agropensa, portfolios and project arrangements) results in R&D projects, through macro programs, generating innovations for Brazilian agriculture. Research limitations/implications – It should be noted that this study presents some limitations, among them, the fact that only one company is being analyzed. Practical implications – Therefore, EMBRAPA’s organizational structure provides a structural framework for R&D management, promoting knowledge sharing and infrastructure. This makes the strategic planning (Agropensa, portfolios and arrangements) to result in R&D projects, via macro programs, generating innovations for the Brazilian agriculture. On the contributions to the advancement of knowledge with regard to the professional management of public research institutes, it is worth synthesizing, therefore, the following practical evidence in the field and that they were key to the successful management of R&D activities in EMBRAPA. Originality/value – The choice of this company is due to its importance for the Brazilian agricultural development, to the innovations generated for the modernization of agriculture and due to it being a public, internationalized R&D company, and with a trajectory of four decades of existence

Mapping innovative clusters in national innovation systems

In the following paragraphs we will discuss the ?mapping of innovative clusters in national innovation systems?. For this we have used a data set of almost 3.000 firms that participated in the first and fifth survey of the Mannheimer Innovation Survey (which is comparable with CIS data). The Community Innovation Survey (CIS) is an initiative of the EU Commission and a joint survey of DG XIII/SPRINT/EIMS and Eurostat. To begin with we will, in the context of a definition of innovation systems, highlight the outline conditions for innovations in Germany, focusing above all on the basis of innovations, science and engineering. This is followed by a step-by-step empirical analysis of the mapping of innovative clusters at the company level which is based on the Community Innovation Survey set of data; and finally the structural influences (size-effect, effects of sectors/industries) on the innovative behaviour or innovative styles are presented. The explanatory power of structural influences on the innovative behaviour will also be analysed as well as the influence of other variables such as information flows and cooperation patterns within the innovation system of Germany. In the summary at the end of this paper we will suggest starting points for potential implications for innovation policy in order to be able to develop generic and specific policies for the different industry clusters. As far as we know from firms innovating at a certain level of organisation, they use a special portfolio of information and knowledge transfer strategies that can not simply be transferred to firms which are not (yet) innovative. While accepting that innovative inhouse activities are necessary to keep track with international developments and competition, a highly innovative atmosphere within the economy which supports innovative activities should be among the main goals of innovation policy. Furthermore, firms need to have an absorptive capacity to transform knowledge into innovations that bring economic success. --

Innovation Systems, Radical Transformation, Step-by-Step: India in Light of China

The paper introduces a reform trajectory we call ?revolutionary incrementalism? in which partial and incremental measures add up to profound transformation. Recent advances in economic theory demonstrate that growth is not hard to start: it almost starts itself, somewhere, sometimes. But keeping it going is not easy: doing so requires attention to the context of growth binding constraints and situation-specific ways to resolve them. The same goes for institutions: it is almost always possible to find some that are working. The issue is using the ones that work to improve those that don?t. The thrust of the proposal is to rely on variation within existing institutions as the ?Archimedean lever? with which to leverage reform and change. India?s public sector record for implementing and coordinating innovation efforts can be notoriously fragmented and inefficient but there are some parts that perform better than others, and there are recognized pockets of excellence virtually within every ministry or public sector organization. The same internal diversity is even more visible in the private sector. Importantly from a policy perspective, better performing segments of public sector and better performing segments of productive sector are beginning to join forces in a variety of search ...innovation systems, heterogeneity of institutions, radical incrementalism, search networks, open economy industrial policy

Innovation dynamics and the role of infrastructure

This report shows how the role of the infrastructure – standards, measurement, accreditation, design and intellectual property – can be integrated into a quantitative model of the innovation system and used to help explain levels and changes in labour productivity and growth in turnover and employment. The summary focuses on the new results from the project, set out in more detail in Sections 5 and 6. The first two sections of the report provide contextual material on the UK innovation system, the nature and content of the infrastructure knowledge and the institutions that provide it. Mixed modes of innovation, the typology of innovation practices developed and applied here, is constituted of six mixed modes, derived from many variables taken from the UK Innovation Survey. These are: Investing in intangibles Technology with IP innovating Using codified knowledge Wider (managerial) innovating Market-led innovating External process modernising. The composition of the innovation modes, and the approach used to compute them, is set out in more detail in Section 4. Modes can be thought of as the underlying process of innovation, a bundle of activities undertaken jointly by firms, and whose working out generates well known indicators such as new product innovations, R&D spending and accessing external information, that are the partial indicators gathered from the innovation survey itself