Convergence Grant to study impact of automation on Port of Rotterdam’s workforce

Nieuws - 08 november 2023 - Communication

How will automation impact the people working at the Port of Rotterdam, now and in the future?

This is the question that IDE PhD candidate and consortium member Soyeon Kim  hopes to answer. The consortium has received a €32,813 Convergence Kick-Starter Grant from Resilient Delta to help them realise their project’s goals.

Impacts of Automation

The project – entitled ‘Inequality and Automation at the Port of Rotterdam: Exploring Work-time Reduction as a Path to Just Resilience’ – focuses on investigating the impact of current and future automation processes on workers at the Port of Rotterdam.

They aim to gain a comprehensive understanding of how automation in the Rotterdam Port affects workforce dynamics. To accomplish this, they will investigate the societal effects of automation in terms of how the benefits and conflicts surrounding automation change among the various Port of Rotterdam stakeholders. During the 10-month research initiative, they will also explore how workers accept automation and investigate the potential for an efficient and sustainable distribution of tasks between workers and automation.

Designing Trustworthy Collaborations

IDE PhD candidate and consortium member, Soyeon Kim, will use her expertise in Human-Machine Interaction and User Experience Design to the project. Her research, which mainly focuses on Designing Human-Machine Interaction for Trustworthy Collaboration, aligns perfectly with the project and its goals.

I look forward to pursuing my research into designing trustworthy collaboration between humans and automation systems through the grant.

― Soyeon Kim

The Consortium

The consortium is led by PhD candidate José L. Gallegos from Rotterdam School of Management, and includes researchers from TU Delft (IDE PhD candidate Soyeon Kim) and Erasmus University, as well as, a host of other collaborating partners.