Climate change has long since ceased to be the exclusive domain of meteorologists. And with cyber security, anno 2024 specialists other than IT people are also involved. These kinds of complex social problems also require economists, psychologists and business experts. Universities and companies are therefore keen to join forces. But breaking through professional walls is punished rather than rewarded.
Collaboration between academic disciplines is essential to tackle challenges such as climate change and cybersecurity. But researchers who collaborate interdisciplinarily receive less recognition. This hampers their publication and funding opportunities. The corporate sector is becoming increasingly important for funding cross-disciplinary research, as the government further withdraws from science.
LDE-Universities
Cooperation between the three South Holland universities takes place under the name LDE (Leiden, Delft, Erasmus). Not only scientists work together, but students can also attend lectures and do research at a university other than their alma mater.
Arnold Tukker, who coordinates the waste project as a professor of industrial ecology in Leiden, explains how the partners complement each other. 'Leiden provides the generic knowledge and system analyses, Erasmus Business School translates that knowledge into workable management models, and Delft develops the technologies and designs.' According to Tukker, cooperation is essential: 'You can have the best technology, but without an effective business model to take it to market, it will not succeed. This leaves many sustainable innovations stranded.'
Rotterdam professor of sustainable business models Koen Dittrich shares this enthusiasm. 'Thanks to working with technical researchers, I learned about technologies such as circuit boards at the nano level, something that completely changed my view on repair,' he says, 'I now see many more opportunities to repair, and I take that into my business models.'
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