Services Provided by the BMS Lab

The BMS Lab provides researchers, professors and students of the BMS faculty with a wide range of forefront technologies to support and enable them with their research, projects or courses. Depending on scope, interests and signals received both internally and from the market, the lab can acquire new technologies if no alternatives are available.

See how to reserve our equipment or check out our equipment overview first.

The BMS Lab offers access to a wide range of software that can be used for varying types of research or as support for research analysis. We differentiate between three services here:

• In-house Developed Software

The BMS Lab has a selection of in-house built software, apps and websites that researchers could use for their research. 

• Access to License Key 

The BMS Lab can provide access to certain software that researchers can use for their projects.

• Support for Software 

The BMS Lab team provides support for their software.

See how to reserve software or check out our software overview first.

The BMS Lab has 5 specialized facilities that researchers and students can make use of. See how to reserve our facilities or check out the facilities overview for more information on each.

As part of the best practices and extensive guidelines of The University of Twente and the BMS Lab, the BMS Lab provides data storage and processing facilities to researchers and students that have a project signed up with us. Read more about this service and how to request it on this page.

Our technical experts in the development team can help students and researchers in further ideation of their project ideas, to help them transfer their research idea and stories into technical requirements. Furthermore, they can support you in consulting on the different possibilities available for your research project or course programs.

The development team can support researchers, students and professors in:

• The development of VR or AR environments in a 
  co-creation process together with the client.
• The development of software, apps, and websites.
• The modification or adding of functionality to existing BMS Lab-developed products.
• Building of connectors and scripts.

The lab has a distinction between two types of development projects that students and researchers can register for. This is 80-hour projects or funded projects. Students and professors of the BMS faculty typically can register for 80-hour projects, and if they exceed this time they would need to require their own funding. Researchers and collaborators outside of the University of Twente or the BMS faculty can also apply for funded projects. 

Our employees are able to consult with students, professors and researchers on a wide range of areas, e.g. how to bring technology & knowledge from the lab to the classroom, ideation & project set-up for the right or ideal technology, on research methodology, or in the form of thesis & research supervision.

The BMS Lab team are able to provide courses, lectures or seminars on differing topics in the domain of Emerging technologies in Social Sciences.

In addition, our technical experts can also support in the development of Virtual Reality environments to be used in course programs.

In this domain, our team can support teachers in the development of the environment, as well as in supporting and providing guidance to students learning to develop VR environments and in learning to be their own technicians.

The lab is a hub for innovative technologies and software. Through research done with these and our own internal expertise, we generate new knowledge and research possibilities. In addition, you can check our Canvas page for tutorials and courses on our technologies or programs. In addition, you can also check out our LinkedIn page for posts on different innovative studies that have been completed in collaboration with the lab.

The BMS Lab aims to aid students and researchers at the University of Twente’s BMS faculty in their research and education. We provide support by supplying and advising on the use of technology in research. Most of our services are free for BMS faculty staff and students. Students and staff members can use our sign-up procedure to request both our expertise and facilities for use in their research, projects or educational activities.

BMS faculty students or staff members

The lab will generally try to honour requests that fit within the guidelines and meet the requirements. Furthermore, the lab requires adequate provisions for secure data management. Moreover, the educational or research activity should be officially part of the BMS faculty. This means that students that are supervised by a BMS faculty staff member in their research can in most cases use the lab’s facilities as well.

Every use of the lab’s facilities or equipment requires the registration of a project, a reservation for the equipment or lab spaces and approval from the lab’s team. The BMS Lab uses a web form to guide interested parties through the process of registering and approving a project and reserving the needed facilities. 

Please note that the process from receiving the request to the approval of the request can take up to 5 business days and that projects may only start after receiving approval. The facilities of the BMS Lab are available (mostly) for free for students and employees of the BMS faculty of the University of Twente.

We love to cooperate with other researchers. We are funded by the university to support the work of BMS faculty staff members and students. In some cases, a non-BMS student can still freely use our facilities. For example, when a student is supervised by a BMS faculty staff member in their research. Furthermore, research or educational activities conducted without the cooperation of the BMS faculty, but that fit within the lab’s scope and focus, can of course inquire about using our facilities. In those cases, there might be a need for financial compensation in exchange for use of the lab’s facilities or expertise for favourable rates for University of Twente personnel and students.

External companies

External companies are welcome to do an inquiry. Such inquiries will be evaluated.

Do you have questions about this subject? Or, are you not part of the BMS faculty and interested in using our equipment, expertise or facilities? Then feel free to contact us.

To request a service from us such as education support or development support, you first have to register your project with us. The BMS Lab uses a web form to guide interested parties through the process of registering and approving a project and reserving the needed facilities. Please note that the process from receiving the request to the approval of the request can take up to 5 business days and that projects may only start after receiving approval. This is a necessary first step for us to learn more about your research or course and how we can best collaborate with you. See below how you can register.

To request a service from us such as education support or development support, you first have to register your project with us. The BMS Lab uses a web form to guide interested parties through the process of registering and approving a project and reserving the needed facilities. Please note that the process from receiving the request to the approval of the request can take up to 5 business days and that projects may only start after receiving approval. This is a necessary first step for us to learn more about your research or course and how we can best collaborate with you. See below how you can register.

We are open Monday – Friday: 9:00 – 17:00.

For questions, please come by during our pick-up times or send us an email with your questions. Depending on the nature of your question, we can set up an appointment to discuss your questions further.

Go to the availability check page. Browse through the calendar in the period you are interested and see if your preferred item is already reserved.

Follow the following steps:

• Go to the starting page for your project sign-up.
• Follow the instructions listed on-screen and fill in the form.
• Once complete, you can proceed to reserve your equipment from the e-mail you’ve received or the on-page instructions.
• Having difficulties? Read the How to reserve equipment and software? / How to reserve lab space? pages for more information.
• You will receive a confirmation from the BMS Lab within 5 work days. 

Please note that in some cases we require additional information or documents that are otherwise missing. We will contact you by e-mail and can only proceed to review your sign-up and/or reservation request once the information is complete and correct.