Projects Digital Sciences for Society
Through its Digital Sciences for Society program, Tilburg University invests in research on the interface of digital sciences, social sciences and the humanities that contributes to solving today’s major challenges.
In June 2023, funding was awarded to 14 Growth Projects. In addition, four Icon Projects received funding in July 2023. The next batch of Icon Projects to be funded comes up in two years, and next year a new call for Growth Projects will go out.
- Icon Projects are research projects with a duration of 3-5 years in which digital sciences are deployed or developed in innovative ways to realize multi-disciplinary approaches to addressing social issues.
- Growth Projects are more explorative in nature, last a maximum of two years and have the potential of developing into Icon Projects.
See the project overview below for more details.
Icon Projects
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AI Deployment Journey in Healthcare: Governance, Design, and Adoption
Healthcare costs are rapidly increasing just like the shortage of staff. Artificial Intelligence is considered to play a crucial role in solving the problem of staff shortage by increasing workflow efficiency and simultaneously providing a better quality of care. This project aims to develop an integral system of practices, processes, and tools to support healthcare organizations’ deployment of AI technologies.
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Case-Inclusive Transparency for a Digital and Open Government (CITaDOG)
The current societal emphasis on open government constitutes a highly promising game changer by requiring enormous amounts of government documents to be made public in a machine-readable way. CITaDOG will assess to what extent public disclosure of single-case decisions as open data can strengthen transparency in administrative decision-making and empower citizens as watchdogs (‘citadogs’).
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DIGIQUITY4HEALTH: How digital choice environments affect equity and disparities in healthy consumption
The digital transformation of the food environment (e.g., supermarket websites and apps) presents both opportunities and threats. Digital choice environments have shown potential for promoting healthy food choice, but predominantly benefitted individuals of higher socioeconomic position (SEP). This project investigates the impact of digital choice environments on healthy food choices and explores how its unique features can serve people with lower SEP in ethically justified ways.
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From impoverished to enriched brains: a lifespan perspective on the link between poverty, nutrition, cognitive functioning and underlying brain networks
Poverty is a pressing global issue with detrimental, far-reaching consequences for individuals. Aim of this research project is to uncover how poverty affects cognitive processes and life and unveil the underlying neural mechanisms by examining alterations in brain networks related to various poverty indicators from a lifespan perspective. Goal is to advance knowledge, promote equitable opportunities and contribute to breaking the cycle of poverty.
Growth Projects
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Al Technology Implementation into the Daily Workflow in Care Organizations: The Role of Human Resource Management
HRM can support health organizations by helping address some of the implementation challenges associated with AI-technologies, including issues of trust, workload changes, or changes in professional relationships. Therefore, this project aims to investigate how the HRM function supports the implementation of AI-technologies into the workflow in care organizations.
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An Interdisciplinary Analysis of gender-based discrimination in Translation Technology
This project focuses on investigating why and under which circumstances current Machine Translation systems perpetuate gender bias, how an ethical framework can evaluate and tackle it, and whether existing legal frameworks recognize and redress gendered linguistic injustice in this context.
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ChatGPT and Beyond: A new way to technological innovation
In line with other AI tools, generative AI has the potential to significantly improve the business discovery and development processes of startups and entrepreneurs. This project aims to explore how entrepreneurs use generative AI in their work and identify the antecedent and mechanism of successful adoption.
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Developing a Pitch and Intensity Test (PINT) to measure second language learners’ auditory perception
Speech segmentation and comprehension remains a challenge to second language learners. This is partly due to the difficulty to identify and use rhythmic information to segment the speech stream. In this project a rhythmic test will be developed to measure second language learners’ perception of pitch and intensity in the context of the temporal organization of sounds, namely rhythm.
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Digital Dignity Initiative
Digital nudges can be used to encourage people that qualify for food bank support to access the food bank. However, there are significant ethical concerns. This project is aimed at fostering trust amongst people seeking to access foodbanks by designing ethical safeguards that protect privacy, dignity, and autonomy.
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Employees usage of ChatGPT at work: A job crafting perspective
AI in organizations has been traditionally introduced by the management from a top-down manner. The recent emergence of generative AI, like ChatGPT, has empowered employees to introduce AI bottom-up. This project investigates how proactive use of generative AI can be facilitated to enhance employee well-being and performance at work.
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Filtering Reality: (Re)constructing media literacy programs related to body image on social media
The potentially negative impact of social media use on (pre) adolescents, particularly in terms of decreased self-esteem and body image issues, has been widely discussed. This project will investigate the opportunities for (re)new(ed) media literacy interventions especially related to (pre)adolescents’ body image adopting a co-creation approach.
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Investigating mind-wandering while driving with a continuous virtual-reality driving task
Mind wandering is at the top of the list of causes of fatal traffic accidents. This project is about creating an ecologically valid VR environment to study when, why, and how the mind wanders during driving, and how mind wandering can be detected and potentially prevented.
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Mobile Cognitive Assessment for all Ages – Development of the Cognition App CogniA
Societies are confronted with increasing numbers of older adults and cases of dementia. Understanding the protective and risk factors earlier in adulthood offers one promising avenue for prevention. This project aims to develop an innovative smartphone app to assess cognition and cognitive flexibility across the entire adult lifespan.
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NAIL: Nail based Artificial Intelligence image Learning for measuring iron status
As tests of iron levels are expensive and invasive, large and longitudinal data on how iron may impact well-being is lacking. A non-invasive method would therefore benefit research and clinical practice. This project aims to develop and validate a smartphone app able to measure hemoglobin levels from a picture of your fingernails.
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Smell-e Technology: Validating immersive multisensory VR food environments to study food choice
Many of our food decisions are made in sensory-rich environments that trigger multiple senses (e.g. sight and smell), especially towards unhealthy foods. This project aims to develop and evaluate an immersive multisensory VR food environment for studying the complex factors that impact our everyday food choices.
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Tackling the impersonality of algorithmic management: community-building strategies and social well-being on online labor platforms
Building on theories of social well-being and research on platform organizations, this project investigates an array of community-building strategies developed by online labor platforms and workers, and their effects on workers’ social well-being.
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Virtual Virtuosity: Building Character through Practical Wisdom in a Digital World
The gradual withdrawal of religious orders and congregations from society is most evident in the Netherlands, where centuries-old communities are now being dissolved. With their values and virtues running the risk of disappearing forever, this project intends to make them fruitful for social engagement and personal growth through an online learning platform.
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Wearable eye-tracking technology for research into parent-child and doctor-patient interactions
Gaze behavior plays an important role in face-to-face communication. Wearable eye-tracking technology makes it possible to study gaze behavior in a natural setting, i.e. outside of the laboratory. In this project, a new type of wearable eye tracker is used to research interpersonal communication by parents and children in the home environment, as well as by doctors and patients in the medical practice.