Facing contemporary challenges, such as climate change, digitalization, and Circular Economy, the construction industry has set ambitious goals on how to build, organize and maintain its social and economic infrastructure. However, the question remains whether the current project-based structure of our industry is suitable for facilitating the systemic change needed to address the current challenges. The Construction Ecosystems Design group aims to obtain insights into the future of interorganizational collaboration, knowledge sharing and innovation practices in infrastructure. We are especially interested in understanding the implications of ecosystem thinking for the construction domain. Because the ecosystem concept focuses on dynamic value-based networks on a project-transcending level, it offers a promising perspective to establish the change is required in the construction domain.
We mainly study the conceptualization and application of the ecosystem perspective in market segments related to civil engineering and its potential contribution in dealing with societal challenges. In tight collaboration with a quadruple helix of public organization, private companies, knowledge institutes, and citizens, we are exploring the conditions, implications and potential benefits of value-based ecosystem collaboration. Key in our research is the alignment of incentives and business models around particular value propositions. This means that we explore how the ecosystem perspective of mutual dependencies helps to create societal value by explicating common goals, decrease overall construction costs, minimize tensions between actors and stimulate high-impact innovation, knowledge utilisation and learning. The Construction Ecosystems Design group is affiliated to the Chair of Integrated Project Delivery of Professor Leentje Volker.
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projects
At the moment we are working on two projects, one lead by Tom Coenen, and the other by Lynn Vosman. See below for additional information.
Transition towards circularity in construction and infrastructure
In the past years, circularity has also become an important theme in policies, in the Netherlands most notably the goal by the government to be circular by 2050. Also in the construction industry Circular Economy is becoming increasingly important because of the aim to reduce the use of materials and waste generation significantly. This requires innovative technologies - e.g. to improve recycling efficiency - but more importantly, it compels new ways of working, organizing and collaborating. In this research project, we study the transition towards a Circular Economy in construction and infrastructure and look at the myriad of aspects that need to change to reach a system in the sector that is considered fully circular. The ecosystem thinking is an important perspective in this light for it considers the important conditions of closing the supply chain, integration of services, knowledge sharing, and relationship building. The PhD project is funded by Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch governmental infrastructure agency.
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Programmatic collabration in infrastructure ecosystems
In response to emerging societal challenges and the extensive infrastructure maintenance task in the construction industry, we explore how programmatic collaboration can drive sectoral change. Programmatic collaboration refers to initiative in which one or more client organisations collaborate with one or more contractors and other suppliers on a portfolio of projects. Hence, the aim of this PhD project is to gain more insight in interorganizational collaboration between public and private partners on a programme level. We analyse how this novel collaborative approach can be beneficial for the development and diffusion of innovation in the infrastructure sector due to long-term partnerships, strategic asset- and portfolio management, learning and knowledge sharing. The ecosystem philosophy is used as an inspiration to redefine these collaborative relationships. In this PhD project the University of Twente cooperates with the VU Amsterdam and the following public clients from the construction industry:
- Gemeente Amsterdam (https://www.amsterdam.nl/ingenieursbureau/)
- Gemeente Den Haag (https://www.denhaag.nl/nl.htm)
- Waterschapsbedrijf Limburg (https://www.wbl.nl/)
- Waterschap Drents-Overijsselse Delta (https://www.wdodelta.nl/)
- Prorail (https://www.prorail.nl/)
- Rijkswaterstaat (https://www.rijkswaterstaat.nl/)
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