Research Support newsletter - December 2023

The EEMCS Research Networking Day, the 2023 edition, took place on Thursday, 21 September, in Kinepolis, Enschede. 

About 130 people participated in the event. Prof.Dr. Joost Kok, dean, and Prof.Dr.ir. Peter Veltink, vice dean for research, welcomed everyone and presented basic elements of EEMCS's future multiannual strategy. We learned about research from presentations of 4 theme teams projects in interactive panel sessions: EERI, PACOF, SDI and SEARCH. 

The poster session offered another opportunity for vivid discussions on the research of our colleagues. 32 posters were presented. The cross-disciplinary jury (Prof.Dr.ir. André Kokkeler, Dr. Sophie Langer, Dr. Andrea Continella) awarded a price of € 100 to each of the three most popular posters:  

• Multimodal human and system analysis using physiology-informed machine learning technology, from BSS, EE. Author: Dr. Ying Wang 
• Smart connected bikes - towards safe, sustainable, and accessible cycling, from PS, CS.  Authors: Dr. Yanqiu Huang, Deepak Yeleshetty, Khalil Fredj, Akhil Pallamreddy, and Prof.Dr. Paul Havinga 
• Hack me now & get a cookie, from Twente Hacking Squad. Authors: Federico Mazzone and Jerre Starink 

In the Match-Pitch-and-Win game, interdisciplinary teams were formed to develop ideas for a research project. Three presented ideas have been selected to further develop research proposals. The cross-disciplinary jury consisting of Dr.Ing. Eric Klunperink, Prof.Dr. Johannes Schmidt-Hieber and Dr.ir. Vadim Zaytsev made the final decision, awarding the € 5000 funding to the best proposal: 

Improving cycling safety with smart connected bikes, Y. Huang (PS), M. Makkink (BSS), F. Wouda (BSS), A. Antoniadis (DMMP), A. Briassouli (DMB), E. Talavera Martínez (DMB), A. Pallamreddy (PS) 

The atmosphere of the event has been nicely captured in a short film created by Thijs Bink, an EmSys/ITech student.

EEMCS expresses special thanks to the organisation committee of the event: Dr. Yang Miao, Dr.ir. Vadim Zaytsev, Dr. Annika Betken and Marieke Smellink-Kleisman. 

Our Open Access monitoring showed that in 2022, UT reached 95% open access overall, with EEMCS leading at 98%! However, EEMCS relied more heavily on Green OA compared to other faculties. In the coming year(s), we will work to increase the percentage of Gold OA publications and broaden our scope to include conference proceedings in the monitoring. 

Here are some highlights of current developments: 

• We advise researchers on journal selection, considering performance indicators and open access policies. For instance, recommended fully open access journals including current UT deals (including terms & conditions) can be found in our journal browser. 
• EEMCS has a fund to cover publishing costs for OA articles not covered by existing UT deals. Details are on our research support page. The OA fund has been extended for 2024. 
• We are improving Pure workflows to make registering outputs easier and faster. For example, we are part of a pilot program to use Elsevier's Data Monitor to automatically supply metadata on published research outputs and notify users about newly available datasets. If you have any questions about registering data in Pure, let us know! 
• Upcoming activities include a Pure training for group secretaries and a workshop on high-impact publishing for CS PhD students. Keep an eye on your inbox and the service portal for details and sign-ups! 

The faculty's information specialist, Samuel Mok, is available to assist with publishing, copyright, and other library matters.

S. Mok MSc (Samuel) Information Specialist

+31534897943

 s.mok@utwente.nl

Building: Zilverling 1096

Personal page

This year we updated the Research Data Management Policy for EEMCS. A first draft was discussed in the FB in September. Since then, our data stewards, Marianna Avetisyan and Shaokang Zhang, have been discussing the draft with contact persons within the research groups to make sure the policy will align with current best practices. We hope to finalize the policy in the Spring of 2024. 

After that, we will continue to support the groups with the implementation of the policy. 

In September, the executive board assigned the task of formulating a research software policy for the UT to Petri de Willigen (EEMCS), Marianna Avetisyan (LISA), Peter van Roosmalen (GA) and Hidde Eidhof (GA).  

The policy aims to provide clarification on copyright on software at the Universiteit Twente and serves to give clarity on applicable procedures relating to the Licensing, Registration, Knowledge Safety, Commercialisation and Management of Research Software. 

A first draft has been sent out to stakeholders within the UT, such as researchers and representatives of SP, LISA and KTO. We hope to present a final version of the policy to the executive board before the summer. 

The Faculty Board attaches great importance to raising awareness about scientific integrity and they asked all research groups to discuss scientific integrity regularly during staff meetings in March 2023. The recommendation was to play the Dilemma Game, developed by the Erasmus University Rotterdam, either during a dedicated session or during regular meetings. Members of the Working Group Scientific Integrity offered help and have guided a few of those dedicated sessions. 

An example of how such a session could be was given by Marcus Gerhold during the Research Networking Day in September. 

In January 2024, we will ask each group to report on their experience with the dilemma game or other ways to pay attention to integrity.  

The Ethics Committee Computer & Information Science welcomed two new members/reviewers to our committee: Georgiana Caltais (FMT) and Vincent Groenhuis (RAM). With a rising number of review requests, from 226 in the academic year 21/22 to 316 in 22/23, extra reviewers are a welcome addition. 

Computer & Information Sciences (CIS) covers a broad range of research themes such as Human-Computer Interaction and Design, Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, Human-Robot Interaction, Interactive Devices and Wearables, Signal Processing, Measurement Technology, and Cyber Security. 

Ethical review requests are typically sent to the CIS Ethics Committee when they are part of a project in which new ICT technology is designed or developed. User studies around the design and development of novel ICT technology are part of that, but so are, for example, projects developing novel measurement systems or (data sets for) AI modules. 

Initiated by the Ethics Committee Computer & Information Science, the UT established an outbound Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Policy for Research in March 2023. 

The policy gives (security) researchers and students clear guidelines for conducting vulnerability discovery activities during their research and conveys the University's preferences on coordinating with vendors to disclose and mitigate the discovered vulnerabilities. 

In Juli, LISA introduced UniShare, a Content Collaboration Platform (CCP) for Research Data.  

UniShare utilizes Nextcloud, a powerful and versatile open-source software solution that provides both server and client functionality for a Content Collaboration Platform. By leveraging Nextcloud as its foundation, UniShare can offer a seamless user experience with advanced features such as file sharing, version control, and data synchronization across different devices.  

One of the key features of UniShare is the ability to grant access to both internal and external researchers, allowing everyone to use their own institutional identity.

Grants Office is available to discuss your plans for funding acquisition!  

Use Research Connect to create your personalized call search and contact us at grants-office@utwente.nl 

Task force group led by the vice dean of research, prof. dr. ir. Peter Veltink has been intensively working on the new multi-annual strategy 2025-2029 since March 2023.  

The process is based on extensive consultation and discussion with internal and external stakeholders. The brainstorm event with a wide representation of the scientific and support staff took place in March and contributed to defining basic orientation for further discussions on education, research and organizational aspects of the new strategy.  

In the period between June and September, the consultations with internal stakeholders (disciplines DAMUT, CS, EE; Chamber of Professors; FC-OW; Faculty Council; Design lab; research institutes DSI, Techmed, MESA+; Rector; S&P; SBD and DE&I) refined our mission, vision and strategic steps.  

We held a discussion with the external stakeholders on 20 September on how to collaborate in the future and contribute to a resilient and sustainable society.  

We expect the final multi-annual strategy to be approved by the Faculty Board in spring 2024. The new multi-annual strategy will define where our faculty wants to stand in education and research how we will achieve our ambitions as a unique institution while improving people’s lives in a rapidly changing world with essential challenges.