Why are McDonald’s ice cream machines always broken—and what does that say about your right to repair? This project uses that iconic case to study how digital restrictions on repair affect real-world outcomes. In 2024, a U.S. court ruling gave McDonald’s franchisees legal access to third-party repair tools. The project evaluates the impact of that change using machine uptime data, foot traffic, and online reviews. It also examines how companies adapt and how customers respond. The goal is to inform Europe’s Right to Repair agenda with new evidence on how repair access shapes business performance, consumer welfare, and sustainability.

This study will explore the determinants of entrepreneurial performance, of enterprises and solo-entrepreneurs, in the creative industries, distinguishing potentially important performance drivers at the level of the individual, enterprise and environment. We focus on three performance outcomes: growth, innovativeness and profitability. Our proposed research project will be very multi-disciplinary in nature, given the wide variety of literatures dealing with the issue of business strategy and performance, integrating insights from Business (e.g., innovation strategy), Economics (e.g., market competition), Psychology (e.g., leadership personality), Public Administration (e.g., red tape) and Sociology (e.g., network features), with special attention for entrepreneurial ambition and collaboration. From a Business perspective, we take contingency theory as the vehicle to develop a comprehensive model of the behaviour and performance of creative entrepreneurs and enterprises. In so doing, the proposed research seeks to assess which bundles of performance drivers are key under what types of circumstances. This multi-disciplinary theoretical perspective will materialize in a multi-dimensional contingency fit concept, which can be estimated by applying a combination of advanced statistical analyses. The research will be developed, executed and disseminated in the context of a consortium of collaborators from the creative industries, and will be financially supported by FNV KIEM. We focus on traditional arts and new applied creative professions, as well as on collaboration with traditional industries. Interviews and case studies will be combined with panel surveys and action research. Unique qualitative and quantitative data will be collected in two regions: Greater Amsterdam and Brabant.

Rural-urban regions feel an increasing need for landscape services such as clean drinking water, recreational space and space for living and working. While these demands are greatest in cities, the potential to provide these services is greatest in rural areas. It is possible to manage this - under the right preconditions - but it does require spatial interventions, strong policies and the financial-organizational matching of supply and demand. Landscape services can thus form the necessary extra link in the transformation towards sustainability, contributing to a more beautiful landscape and fertile soils for current and future generations.

This project consists of three parts: the development of educational materials for Universities of Applied Sciences for data-driven logistics, research into the role of warehouses in the Dutch logistics sector, and the development of a general equilibrium model for mobility in the Netherlands. The teaching material is accessible via the digitallogistiek.nl platform. Research into warehousification in the Netherlands contributes to the social discussion about logistics real estate. The general equilibrium model for mobility offers opportunities for further analyzes of urgent mobility bottlenecks such as congestion.

Binnen een fieldlab experimenteren kennisinstellingen, bedrijven en andere regionale organisaties met nieuwe oplossingsrichtingen voor maatschappelijke problemen. De innovaties die zo ontwikkeld worden blijken echter vaak moeilijk schaalbaar waardoor de impact op het maatschappelijke verdienvermogen nog moeilijk aan te tonen is. In het Fieldlab@Scale project doet ons interdisciplinair consortium onderzoek naar het opschalen van missie-gedreven innovaties door fieldlabs in verschillende domeinen: smart industry, gezondheidszorg, landbouw en infrastructuur. Samen met beleidsmakers, regionale netwerkorganisaties, fieldlabs en hun achterliggende organisaties brengen wij de mechanismen voor het gezamenlijk experimenteren in kaart en ontwikkelen op basis van deze inzichten een instrumentarium en opleidingsprogramma voor fieldlabs.