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On March 9th and 10th Zac Woolfitt attended the Media and Learning Conference in Brussels. The programme of this annual conference examines ‘developments, services and uses of media in education and training to […] identify policies and initiatives that promote digital and media competence at all levels of education and training as well as to promote best-practice in the take-up and application of media in education and training.’
This professional note discusses several key topics in food and beverage sector in 2024. It is based on the Future of Food and Beverage 2024 conference organized by Innovation Forum in Amsterdam 14-15 May 2024.
The 5th International CSR Communication Conference was hosted in Stockholm, by the Stockholm School of Economics in September 2019. Scholars and practitioners from all five continents were present at this great event. Alongside with around 60 academic presentations included in the proceedings, the program was set to introduce and discuss various trending topics in CSR and sustainability. The list of keynote and panelguests included several renowned authors in CSR and sustainability research, such as: Mats Alvesson, Annavon Bergen, Nils Brunsson, Itziar Castello, Michael Etter, Mikkel Flyverbom, Jean-Pascal Gond, Ellen Quigley,Dennis Schoeneborn, and Laura J. Spence. This ‘all-star cast’, together with a number of young scholars andestablished researchers in CSR who continue to express their loyalty to this conference, have once againconfirmed the importance of the event for the CSR communication research community.Five conferences later, studying communicational aspects of CSR has become firmly institutionalized and the field of CSR communication has been established. From the start of this biannual event, the conference has produced more than 300 papers on various CSR communication-related topics. An overview of the past conferences reflects the changing agenda of CSR communication research with several new themes and research approaches emerging. Starting with the instrumental perspective that was focused on strategic management of CSR communication, the research topics moved towards more relational views featuringengagement, relationships, digital environments and internal, employee-focused aspects. And lately, agraduate emergence of communicative constitutive perspectives, the role of talk and performativity in CSR isevident.Development of CSR communication filed and scholars’ participation over time has certainly been dynamic,with several voices driving the change from within, searching new paths to study CSR, stimulating participation of scholars and inviting alternative interpretations. This (positive) dynamic seems to be critical for moving the field forward (Verk, Golob, & Podnar, 2019). Proceedings of the 5th International CSR Communication Conference reflect some of the dynamics. They are divided into several sections that cover such topics as CSR engagement, talk and dialog; CSR reporting,perceptions and internal CSR perspectives; digital media and organizing, CSR across industries, NGOengagement, corporate irresponsibility; CSR and educational organizations, and communicative aspects ofsustainability.Thank you to all conference keynote speakers and panelists, as well as to all reviewers, presenters, discussantsand participants from academia and practice for sharing new thoughts and ideas and yet again contributing to the enrichment of CSR communication debate.
Our world is changing rapidly as a result of societal and technological developments that create new opportunities and challenges. Extended Realities (XR) could provide solutions for the problems the world is facing. In this project we apply these novel solutions in food and hospitality. It aims to tackle fundamental questions on how to stimulate a healthy and vital society that is based on a sustainable and innovative economy. This project aims to answer the question: How can Extended Reality (XR) technologies be integrated in the design of immersive food experiences to stimulate sustainable consumption behavior? A multidisciplinary approach, that has demonstrated its strength in the creative industry, will be applied in the hospitality and food sector. The project investigates implications and design considerations for immersion through XR technology that can stimulate sustainable consumption behavior. Based on XR prototypes, physiological data will be collected using biometric measuring devices in combination with self-reports. The effect of stimuli on sustainable consumption behavior during the immersive experience will be tested to introduce XR implementations that can motivate long-term behavioral change in food consumption. The results of the project contribute towards developing innovations in the hospitality sector that can tackle global societal challenges by exploiting the impact of new technology and understanding of consumer behavior to promote a healthy lifestyle and economy. Next to academic publications and conference contributions, the project will develop a handbook for hospitality professionals. It will outline steps and design criteria for the implementation of XR technologies to create immersive experiences that can stimulate sustainable consumption behavior. The knowledge generated in the project will contribute to the development of the curriculum at the Academy for Hotel and Facility at Breda University of Applied Sciences by introducing a technology-driven experience design approach for the course Sustainable Strategic Business Design.
A huge amount of data are being generated, collected, analysed and distributed in a fast pace in our daily life. This data growth requires efficient techniques for analysing and processing high volumes of data, for which preserving privacy effectively is a crucial challenge and even a key necessity, considering the recently coming into effect privacy laws (e.g., the EU General Data Protection Regulation-GDPR). Companies and organisations in their real-world applications need scalable and usable privacy preserving techniques to support them in protecting personal data. This research focuses on efficient and usable privacy preserving techniques in data processing. The research will be conducted in different directions: - Exploring state of the art techniques. - Designing and applying experiments on existing tool-sets. - Evaluating the results of the experiments based on the real-life case studies. - Improving the techniques and/or the tool to meet the requirements of the companies. The proposal will provide results for: - Education: like offering courses, lectures, students projects, solutions for privacy preservation challenges within the educational institutes. - Companies: like providing tool evaluation insights based on case studies and giving proposals for enhancing current challenges. - Research centre (i.e., Creating 010): like expanding its expertise on privacy protection technologies and publishing technical reports and papers. This research will be sustained by pursuing following up projects actively.
The increasing concentration of people in urban environments in an era of globalisation means that social, economic, and environmental resources for living and working are under pressure. Urban communities experience increased stress levels due to inadequate and overburdened infrastructure and services, challenges due to ethnic and cultural diversity, socio-economic inequalities as well as the impact of environmental degradation. For these communities to build resilience under these circumstances therefore requires a multipronged approach. The underlying question this project will answer is: “What are the key characteristics of experiencescapes that contribute to resilience-building in communities?” The project will dive into the identification of building blocks of experiencescapes and roles of relevant actors that can support communities in building resilience. Within the context of a multidisciplinary approach, this project applies a range of qualitative research methods, such as in-depth interviews, focus groups, participant observation, storytelling techniques, life stories, as well as various biometric quantitative methods, available through the experience lab of BUas. The outcome of the project will enable practitioners and researchers alike in various sectors to understand what and how they can contribute to creating an environment in which people can meaningfully interact in a way that builds resilience in communities. This outcome is communicated not only through academic publications and conference contributions, but also through public reports and a handbook for practitioners and students. These reports and handbooks support identification and application of building blocks of experiencescapes that support building resilience in communities. Finally, the knowledge generated in the project will contribute to the development of curricula of various educational programmes at Breda University of Applied Sciences by expanding the scope of experience design into the area of people-to-people relationships.