Best Bessensap masterclass presentation given by Martijn Kleppe
According to the jury, Martijn Kleppe, Erasmus University Rotterdam PhD student from the Faculty of History and Arts, gave the best of the nine presentations at the Bessensap ‘press-meets-academia festival’ organised by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and held on Monday, 7 June 2010.
Waiting for the political moment
The bonus culture seems to continue unbridled, we eat factory-farmed meat, and we are all addicted to consumption. We are apparently unlikely to change course ourselves, waiting instead for ‘the political moment’ when this will happen. Frans-Willem Korsten (EUR Professor of Literature and Society) and Bram Ieven (Utrecht University) organised the international conference ‘Waiting for the Political Moment’. The conference will be held from Wednesday, 16 June to Saturday, 19 June 2010 in Utrecht and Rotterdam.
Forget debates: political games are the way to reach potential voters!
In the Netherlands, too, new media have become an inextricable element in political campaigns. The socialist party SP and the Christian democratic party ChristenUnie launched online games -- Operatie Grote Schoonmaak (Operation Big Sweep) and Race met Rouvoet (Race with Rouvoet, named after the party leader), respectively -- in an attempt to draw the attention of young people. Is it possible for political parties to influence voters in this seemingly playful manner? Erasmus University Rotterdam researchers Joyce Neys and Jeroen Jansz from the Faculty of History and Arts (Department of Media and Communication) researched the impact of political games on potential voters. The study revealed that potential voters who play and create these games feel highly politically and socially engaged.
Sandardised IT capabilities important for enhancing business agility
In the current marketplace, service organisations increasingly need to collaborate in partner networks. Competition thus also tends to move away from the organisation itself into the network. However, such networked organisations require new business models based on business agility to sense and respond quickly to highly uncertain events, which can be either threats or opportunities in the market place. Price wars, fast changing customer demands, new governmental legislation and reorganisations cause a lot of uncertainty and are perceived as major drivers for business agility need. In these dynamic networks, quick-connect and data sharing with (changing) business partners becomes a necessity in order to succeed as a business over time. In his dissertation entitled Business Agility and Information Technology in Service Organizations, Marcel van Oosterhout shows that standardised IT capabilities can be an important means for enhancing such business agility. Marcel van Oosterhout will defend his dissertation on June 17, 2010 at 13.30 hours at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University.
Involving citizens in water plans
Citizens and other stakeholders should be involved from the beginning until the end in interactive planning to make space for water in the Netherlands, poses Nienke van Schie in her PhD-thesis ‘Co-valuation of water. An institutional perspective on valuation in spatial water management’. Currently, citizens are mainly involved in scenario development for water projects, while educated experts traditionally dominate the evaluation of these scenarios. Van Schie will defend her thesis on Friday June 18th 2010, at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
