Stories of Science

Our researchers work every day on clever solutions for worldwide challenges to change the world and make an impact. Meet our heroes.

Discover their stories

Or read more

Highlighted story

reading time: 6 min

Critical raw materials, from our own European backyard

New technologies require raw materials that are in limited supply. In the EU, we are largely dependent on China. The big question is: how can we become more self-sufficient in Europe? Researcher Willem Auping is trying to map the future market development of scarce metals using simulation models.
Oops, an error occurred! Code: 20240518153352b85a0b98

Search by subject / researcher

Analyse van brandweeroproepen op oudejaarsavond op basis van open-sourcedata

reading time: 4 min

Analysing firefighter calls on New Year’s Eve with open source data

At present an active societal debate is going on in the Netherlands whether consumer fireworks should be banned. This debate follows from increasing violence directed at first aid responders, annually increasing arson and damage to public and private property. Researchers Mikhail Sirenko, Trivik Verma, and Igor Nikolic analysed firefighter calls to support the debate with facts and figures.
Sociaal contact bevorderen met behulp van onlinegames

reading time: 5 min

Promoting social interaction through online games

Today’s society is faced with the challenge of communities that do not really participate in society. They keep to themselves and hardly interact with others in public spaces. This is often the case in urban districts. The municipalities of Rotterdam and The Hague embrace this challenge as an essential element of social resilience and want to address it in a positive way, through serious gaming. In the research project ‘Secrets of the South’ TPM researcher Xavier Fonseca focuses on the design of meaningful social interaction by making use of multi-player online games: “I want to contribute to making these groups feel they belong.”
Een stad inrichten met botsende waarden? Het kan!

reading time: min

Planning a city with conflicting values? No problem!

Increasing urbanisation is creating major challenges in spatial planning. Not least because everyone has different priorities when it comes to organising the public space. For his Master's thesis, best graduate of 2021 in the Faculty of TPM, Rico Herzog, mapped out conflicts of values within a city and developed a model to deal with such conflicts; a model intended to help decision-makers to make better urban planning decisions.
Proactief aan de slag voor veilige gasnetwerken in Nederland

reading time: 6 min

Working proactively for safe gas networks in the Netherlands

Dutch gas network operators increasingly face factors that affect the safety of the gas network, such as different qualities of gas that cannot simply be mixed, pipes that have to be replaced, new technologies and changes in the tasks and responsibilities of partners in the chain. Netbeheer Nederland, the sector organisation for all electricity and gas distribution network operators, wants to be able to respond proactively to these challenges, which is why Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) has been working since 2014 with Netbeheer Nederland and other stakeholders to exchange knowledge and identify issues. TPM researchers Genserik Reniers and Rolf Künneke are working on safety and regulation models, respectively, in order to guarantee the safety of gas distribution networks even under changing institutional and technological conditions.
Veilige datamarktplaatsen voor innovatie

reading time: 5 min

Safe and secure data marketplaces for innovation

Data-driven business models are a key engine of our digitised society. To achieve data-driven innovation, it is important that companies also share data. Examples include sharing data with competitors in order to understand changes in consumer behaviour or with partners to enable smarter deliveries of goods. Various open data marketplaces already exist, but struggle to take off and often fail to progress beyond the pilot phase. With the SafeDEED project, TU Delft collaborates with a consortium of European companies and universities to develop technologies to help these kinds of marketplaces get off the ground and become successful. Mark de Reuver and Tobias Fiebig from the faculty of TPM lead TU Delfts efforts in this three-year project.

reading time: 4 min

How to guarantee public values in crowd-based innovations?

In today’s society, citizens are increasingly taking on a new role relative to the government and business community in the supply of products and services such as energy and transport. Examples include initiatives such as neighbours who join forces to purchase wind turbines, house swaps via Airbnb and transport using Uber. This can present challenges for the existing public structures, creating tension between the public sector and these initiatives. Who is actually responsible for what? How can you ensure that public values, such as equality, justice and privacy, can be guaranteed in these unregulated initiatives? “Questions like these take centre stage in the NWO Responsible Innovation project ‘Governing Crowd-based Innovation (CBI)”, says project leader Eefje Cuppen. “Although there has been previous research into these kinds of initiatives from an economic and innovation perspective, this approach is unique.”
Hoe games met klassieke muziek mogelijk bijdragen aan een tolerante samenleving

reading time: 4 min

Creating a tolerant society with games and classical music

Openness and tolerance are essential public values in our democratic society. Being prepared to actively listen to each other is a fundamental aspect of an inclusive and sustainable society. But whether we are all such good listeners is questionable; in fact we often overestimate our ability to truly listen to other people and therefore understand them.
Hoe de douane efficiënter inspecteert in de logistieke keten

reading time: 3 min

Improving the efficiency of Customs inspections in the logistics supply chain

In the years ahead, Customs at Schiphol airport and the Port of Rotterdam are set to have a lot of work on their hands. In the next five years, the huge growth in e-commerce and the imminent Brexit will lead to an increase from 160 million to 500 million in the number of Customs declarations passing through these major logistics hubs of Europe. This massive increase calls for smart ways of working in order to guarantee efficient risk analysis and cut costs in processing Customs import declarations. “In light of this, digitisation and collaboration between Customs organisations and the transport supply chain will be of key importance,” says Yao-Hua Tan, Professor of Information and Communication Technology.
Vooral veel voordelen van 100 kilometer op de snelweg

reading time: 9 min

Motorway speed limits of 100 km/h largely advantageous

The maximum speed on Dutch motorways is set to be reduced to 100 km/h soon. This measure is expected to reduce nitrogen deposition to a sufficient extent in the short term to enable important construction projects to proceed. Bert van Wee, Professor of Transport Policy, has been closely monitoring the issue of speed for many years.
Defossilisering van de chemische industrie: van molecuul tot grootschalige systeemintegratie

reading time: 4 min

Defossilising chemical industry: from molecule to large-scale system integration

90% of raw materials used today in the EU chemical industry are still from fossil origin. The energy transition therefore has far-stretching implications for chemical companies.

reading time: 4 min

How do you ensure that changing norms and values are embedded in technical developments?

Over time, norms and values change. When the internet was first developed, the idea was that all the information that was posted should be kept so that nothing would be lost. At the time, that was an important value. Nowadays, though, we want to give internet users the right to be forgotten, but the system is not geared up to doing this. How do you deal with this discrepancy? These kind of questions are tackled by Ibo van de Poel in his ERC project, in which he and his team are working on a philosophical theory on value change. Ibo van de Poel: “The aim is to create a theory of value change that helps designers develop technical systems that can deal with changing values.”

reading time: 4 min

Laying cables under stress in the Infrarium: The Energy Grid Game

Forty-five minutes of stress in a sea container that has been transformed into an infrarium filled with physical and mental challenges. How do you go about laying energy cables without disrupting industry or energy suppliers? How can you work with others in a small space filled with smoke, flashing lights and incessant noise? What effect do stress and emotions have on decision-making? The Energy Grid Game simulation reveals the challenging decisions that the energy sector will face during the current energy transition. This case focuses on the Port of Rotterdam. The game was designed by Igor Nikolic, associate professor of participatory multi-modelling, and Geertje Bekebrede, associate professor of serious game design. The goal is to allow participants to experience, both physically and emotionally, the urgency, cohesion, mutual dependence and complexity of the energy transition.