Maarten van der Sanden

From where I start

As many others in the field of science communication I start from the eternal braid of science, technology and society. And I’m fascinated by how human communicative and collaborative behaviour at the one hand, and scientific and technological development at the other strongly influence each other. More specific I’m interested in understanding through design-based research how people make decisions upon their collaboration in socio-technical networks for innovation on a daily basis in order to help to further their innovations.

Systems perspective

It is about the little things that people in reality say, do, make, ignore, emphasize. It is about collaboration at the human measure. It is about all these individual differences that are at the same time distributed throughout a collaborative network of professionals, who work under political, organisational and technological pressure. This eventually leads to the dynamics that we observe in the daily practice of innovation eco-systems in health and energy transition, and the transitions of metropolitan areas.

Moreover, socio-technical transitions take place in complex world, asking for complex communication processes and support tools. Doesn’t mean solutions cannot be breath taking simple, like a small token at your key cord, just to remember something or to sustain a group feeling and take collaboration from there.