INSTITUTES

Innovations and Governance Studies (IGS) Research Institute

The Innovations and Governance Studies (IGS) Research Institute is one of six such institutes at the UT. This internationally-orientated institute carries out research in the area of the direction and management of technological and social innovation. Approximately 280 researchers from fourteen research groups are currently associated with IGS. The research is focused on the public and the private sector.

Kees Aarts is Professor of Political Science at the School of Management & Governance. He specialises in elections, voting behaviour and democracy in the Netherlands, and beyond. In his role as Scientific Director he will continue work on internationalising and raising the profile of IGS. IGS's research, with its deep roots in the social sciences is organised into a few larger clusters, as follows: management of science; technology and education; innovation and entrepreneurship; innovation of public administration and water; sustainable energy; and, the issues public space policy. Insofar as each cluster links social science to technical research, these connections are characteristic of a great deal of research at the University of Twente .

Collaborating with CTIT

CTIT is the largest information technology (IT) research institute in the country. It is composed of six Strategic Research Orientations (SROs). A number of the SROs work closely with the School of Management and Governance. This has facilitated an excellent symbiosis between Finance & Administration, Information Systems & Change Management, Operational Methods for Production & Logistics, and the SRO Industrial Engineering & IT, the latter under the leadership of Professor Richard Boucherie. "Our research interests include health care logistics research projects in hospitals, in the area of change management and process optimalisation. In 2009, we investigated the problem of whether new, extra operation rooms should be dedicated to a particular kind of patient, or if the patient groups should be mixed throughout all the operation rooms. That research was done in collaboration with the Dutch Cancer Institute." Another focus of attention for Boucherie's SRO is Financial Engineering. "The modelling of contract negotiations for the future use of energy is something we're doing more and more often. In the future, the trading of CO2 rights will become a more important theme. "