Application domain related aspects
Technology is developing rapidly, providing new AI methods, better ways of collecting data, more extensive and larger data sets, and more possibilities for applications in many domains.
Thanks to Artificial Intelligence, it is possible to find answers to social issues faster, better, and more efficiently
AI is increasingly intersecting with various aspects of our society in an increasing range of fields and application domains. Vice versa, an increasing number of fields, domains, and sectors are looking to artificial intelligence to further advance their performance and open up new possibilities. These not only include the valorization of knowledge to explore new avenues of innovation, develop business models, and improve the performance of organizations but also provide insights and solutions to strengthen our society against threats, boost the resilience of our communities, and support the development of an equal and inclusive society. In short, the advancement of the AI field brings about new possibilities to advance society.
Tilburg University has a long track record of leveraging the potential of technologies for various societal challenges. Artificial intelligence represents and provides a new opportunity to address societal challenges on a scale that has rarely been seen before. Various initiatives in and around Tilburg University are already investigating this potential, including the dangers. To further enhance these efforts and expand in new areas, it is essential to bring together various expertise related to the technology in question, the ethical and legal considerations, and the domain specific knowledge.
Some examples of current initiatives in a variety of application domains:
Health and Wellbeing
Technology Assisted Self-Management: Preventing Relapse and Crisis by the Severe Mentally Ill Themselves
Researchers at Tilburg University will develop a digital self-management platform for people with severe mental illness. The goal is to give this vulnerable group more control over their own mental health and thus reduce the pressure on mental health care. The development of the platform takes place in collaboration with several universities, healthcare professionals and patients.
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.
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.
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. Using digital science tools on large-scale databases, this project aims to advance knowledge, promote equitable opportunities and contribute to breaking the cycle of poverty.
Climate and Energy
MEGAMIND: AI and regulation in the electricity system
MEGAMIND focuses on the so-called edges of the electricity system: the distribution networks and the electricity producing and consuming devices connected to them. In this interdisciplinary project consortium researchers of the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TiLT) will link artificial intelligence research to innovation in legislation and regulation to accelerate the energy transition.
VIA AUGUSTA: Leveraging the potential of a System-of-Systems approach to infrastructure management
The world of infrastructures is confronted with a mountain range of challenges, i.e., urbanisation, digitalisation, the energy transition and increased attention for climate change and sustainability that collectively call for a major transition in infrastructure management. Digitalisation offers great potential to cost-effectively speed up the transition to a ‘system-of-systems’ (SoS) approach through enhanced sharing of data that allows coordinated planning and decision-making. The VIA AUGUSTA project will help infrastructure managers understand in what situations a SoS approach can be meaningful and how to facilitate such an approach by means of effective IT governance (ITG), inter-organisational governance (IOG) and regulatory governance (RG) frameworks.
Public Governance
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’).
Entrepreneurship, Management and Organization
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.
Coordination and complexity: Augmenting team adaptive performance in crisis situations with wearable technology
In the event of accidents, emergencies, disasters and attacks, rapid and effective teamwork can save properties and lives. Wearable technologies could play an important role. By bringing creatives, medical and team experts together, this project will establish industry standards for developing wearable technologies that augment team responsiveness during crises.
Safety and Security
STEADFAST: Swarm Technology Enabling Advanced Drone-Facilitated Active Support Tactics for Military and First Responder Operations
In the STEADFAST project, Tilburg University is going to conduct research into swarms of small drones that can operate (semi-)autonomously under human supervision. These so-called Human-Swarm Teams can be applied in military as well as civilian missions. Especially in complex crisis situations, Human-Swarm Teams offer the possibility of quickly getting an accurate picture of the situation by collecting information in a coordinated manner from various vantage points and at low altitudes.
Contact
Full Professor Evidence Based Management of Innovation in (mental) health care
- Carol Ou
Full Professor of Digital Transformation & Information Management - Kenny Meesters
Researcher specialized in Crisis Information Management