Technologie en innovatie in Vlaanderen: Prioriteiten.

Vlaanderen;

Contending European agendas for agricultural innovation

Amid expectations for a European ‘transition to sustainable agriculture’, there are competing transitional processes. Given the widely acknowledged harm from agro-industrial systems, ‘unsustainable agriculture’ has divergent diagnoses and innovative solutions. This rivalry can be analysed as contending innovation agendas; the analysis here combines theoretical paradigms of agricultural innovation. In an EU policy context of a Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy (KBBE), there are divergent accounts of its key terms: biological resources, economy, relevant knowledge and knowledge-producers. Likewise, divergent accounts are found of innovation, intensification, resource efficiency, resilience, bio-energy, horizontal integration, etc. These divergent agendas are promoted by distinct stakeholder networks. The dominant agenda favours laboratory-based techno-scientific innovation as a source of ‘efficient’ inputs, which can use renewable resources more efficiently for competitive advantage in global value chains. By contrast, other agendas promote farmers’ knowledge of natural resources, especially via agro-ecological methods which can reduce energy inputs, increase productivity and add value through quality. With those contending agendas, rival stakeholder networks seek to influence R&D priorities. From the standpoint of multifunctional agriculture, such contending agendas can play complementary roles in different rural spaces. Some agro-food practices may combine aspects of different paradigms. As a concept, Agricultural Knowledge Systems may provide a common space for interchanges between divergent agendas and their research priorities. However, these innovation agendas promote conflicting visions of the future

Optimising workplace interventions for health and wellbeing: a commentary on the limitations of the public health perspective within the workplace health arena [forthcoming]

Purpose: This paper discusses contemporary approaches to workplace health and well-being, articulating key differences in the intervention architecture between public and workplace health contexts and implications for intervention design. Approach: Contemporary practice is discussed in light of calls for a paradigm shift in occupational health from a treatment orientation to an holistic approach focused on mitigation of the causes of ill health and the promotion of well-being. In practice, relatively few organizations have or seem able to engage with a broader perspective that encompasses challenges to health and well-being associated with contextual organizational drivers, e.g. job design/role, workload, systems of reward, leadership style and the underpinning climate. Drawing upon insights from public health and the workplace safety tradition, the scope for broadening the perspective on intervention (in terms of vectors of harm addressed, theory of change and intervention logic) is discussed. Findings: There are important differences in scope and options for intervention between public health and workplace health contexts. While there is scope to emulate public health practice, this should not constrain thinking over intervention opinions. Increased awareness of these key differences within work organizations, and an evidence-based epidemiological approach to learning has the potential to strengthen and broaden the approach to workplace health and well-being management. Originality/Value: We argue that approaches to workplace well-being interventions that selectively cross-fertilise and adapt elements of public health interventions offer promise for realising a broader change agenda and for building inherently healthy workplaces

Disrupting Illicit Supply Networks: New Applications of Operations Research and Data Analytics to End Modern Slavery

Report from a 2017 National Science Foundation workshop on promising research directions for applications of operations research and data analytics toward the disruption of illicit supply networks like human trafficking. The workshop was funded by the NSF’s Operations Engineering (ENG) and the Law & Social Sciences Program (SBE) under grant # CMMI-1726895. The report addresses the opportunity to apply advances from the fields of operations research, management science, analytics, machine learning, and data science toward the development of disruptive interventions against illicit networks. Such an extension of the current research agenda for trafficking would move understanding of such dynamic systems from descriptive characterization and predictive estimation toward improved dynamic operational control.Bureau of Business Researc

Significance of Trans-European Transport Networks for Logistics Centre Localization as Exemplified by the Łódź Region

This work complements and structures knowledge in the field of logistics centres (with focus on the Łódź region). It presents a thorough analysis of strategic documents of the European Union in reference to the functioning of international transport networks. It also provides a detailed description of logistics facilities operations from the theoretical standpoint and definition of relations in points where logistics centres and TEN-T networks overlap. The result of this work is a set of recommendations referring to effective development of logistics centres on the background of transport corridors

The new political economy of Dirigisme: French macroeconomic policy, unrepentant sinning and the stability and growth pact

This article traces the enduring influence of the dirigiste traditions on contemporary French macroeconomic policy-making, arguing that French policy both within and towards the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) is consistent with long-standing French dirigiste preferences and policy traditions. Specifically it explores how, within the SGP, French governments have created and defended significant fiscal policy space, and how the scope for discretionary policy-making has in fact been enhanced by the credibility accrued through European rule-based governance. Furthermore, it analyses how, in their policies towards the SGP, French governments have successfully influenced the reshaping of the fiscal policy architecture, introducing a more dirigiste interventionism in the interpretation and implementation of the SGP, loosening constraints in accordance with dirigiste preferences. French policy-makers have thus played a 'long-run game' with European economic governance—initially accepting ordo-liberal orthodoxy, only to subsequently 'move the goalposts' in a more dirigiste direction

Industrialization: Quantitative framework, technological dimension and the future we cannot ignore

The paper presents some results of the research that has been systematically conducted over a long period at the Academy of Engineering Sciences of Serbia (AINS) in the area of modern industrial and especially manufacturing technologies, as well as interactions among engineering sciences, technology and the society. The issue of industrialization is closely connected with this research and it is in this context that fresh insights are offered into industrial development, ones that are essentially different from the prevailing stereotypes that have for years been dominant in the management of the economic system in Serbia. Following the introductory chapter that gives a short review of the genesis of Serbian industry, the author offers a view of the industrial system through three chapters: 1) Industrial system of Serbia - Quantification, problems and implications; 2) Restoration and recovery framework - Industrial policies and strategic framework for fast and sustainable exiting the crisis condition; and 3) New industry of Serbia - Serbian industry transformation in the context of European integration processes, the future context (factories of the future), challenges and needs, where special attention is paid to the analysis of the problem of science pragmatization and its active part in the process of industrialization in the framework of the vertical and horizontal technology transfer, as part of the European integrations of Serbia