De kandidatuur van Malta als Europese Culturele hoofdstad in cultuurtoeristisch perspectief
In December of 2004 the Directorate General for Research and Technological Development (DG RTD) of the European Commission (EC) set up a High-Level Expert Group to propose a series of measures to stimulate the reporting of Intellectual Capital in research intensive Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). The Expert Group has focused on enterprises that either perform Research and Development (R&D), or use the results of R&D to innovate and has also considered the implications for the specialist R&D units of larger enterprises, dedicated Research & Technology Organizations and Universities. In this report the Expert Group presents its findings, leading to six recommendations to stimulate the reporting of Intellectual Capital in SMEs by raising awareness, improving reporting competencies, promoting the use of IC Reporting and facilitating standardization.
Fashion has become inextricably linked with digital culture. Digital media have opened up new spaces of fashion consumption that are unprecedented in their levels of ubiquity, immersion, fluidity, and interactivity. The virtual realm continuously needs us to design and communicate our identity online. Unfortunately, the current landscape of digitised fashion practices seems to lack the type of self-governing attitude and urgency that is needed to move beyond commercially mandated platforms and systems that effectively diminish our digital agency. As transformative power seems to be the promise of the virtual, there is an inherent need to critically assess how digital representation of fashion manifests online, especially when these representations become key mediators within our collective and individual public construction of self. A number of collectives and practitioners that actively shape a counter movement, organized bottom up rather than through capital, are questioning this interdependence, applying inverted thinking and experimenting with alternative modes of engagement. Starting from the research question ‘How can critical fashion practitioners introduce and amplify digital agency within fashion’s virtual landscape through new strategies of aesthetic engagement?’, this project investigates the implications of fashion’s increasing shift towards the virtual realm and the ramifications created for digital agency. It centers on how identity is understood in the digital era, whether subjects have full agency while expected to construct multiple selves, and how online environments that enact as playgrounds for our identities might attribute to a distorted sense of self. By using the field of critical fashion as its site, and the rapidly expanding frontier of digital counter practices as a lens, the aim of this project is to contribute to larger changes within an increasingly global and digital society, such as new modes of consumerism, capital and cultural value.
Family Dairy Tech Sustainable and affordable stable management systems for family dairy farms in India. An example of Dutch technology that is useful to an ?emerging economy?. Summary Problem The demand for dairy products in India is increasing. Small and medium-sized family farmers want to capitalize on this development and the Indian government wants to support them. Dutch companies offer knowledge and a wide range of products and services to improve dairy housing systems and better milk quality, in which India is interested. However, the Dutch technology is sophisticated and expensive. For a successful entry into this market, entrepreneurs have to develop affordable and robust (?frugal?) systems and products adapted to the Indian climate and market conditions. The external question is therefore: ?How can Dutch companies specialised on dairy housing systems adapt their products and offer these on the Indian market to contribute to sustainable and profitable local dairy farming??. Goal Since 2011, VHL University of Applied Sciences (VHL) is collaborating with a college and an agricultural information center Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK), Baramati, Pune district, Maharashtra State India. In this region many small-scale dairy farmers are active. Within this project, KVK wants to support farmers to scale up their farm form one or a few cows up to 15 to 100 cows, with a better milk quality. In this innovative project, VHL and Saxion Universities of Applied Sciences, in collaboration with KVK and several Dutch companies want to develop integrated solutions for the growing number of dairy farms in the State of Maharashtra, India. The research questions are: 1. "How can, by smart combinations of existing and new technologies, the cow-varieties and milk- and stable-management systems in Baramati, India, for family farmers be optimized in an affordable and sustainable way?" 2. "What are potential markets in India for Dutch companies in the field of stable management and which innovative business models can support entering this market?" Results The intended results are: 1. A design of an integral stable management system for small and medium-sized dairy farms in India, composed of modified Dutch technologies. 2. A cattle improvement programme for robust cows that are adapted to the conditions of Maharashtra. 3. An advice to Dutch entrepreneurs how to develop their market position in India for their technologies. 4. An advice to Indian family farmers how they can increase their margins in a sustainable way by employing innovative technologies.
The main aim of KiNESIS is to create a Knowledge Alliance among academia, NGOs, communities, local authorities, businesses to develop a program of multidisciplinary activities in shrinking areas with the aim of promoting and fostering ideas, projects, workforce, productivity and attractiveness. The problems affecting peripheral territories in rural or mountain areas of the interior regions, compared to small, medium or large population centres and large European capitals, are related to complex but clear phenomena: the emigration of young generations, abandonment and loneliness of elderly people, the loss of jobs, the deterioration of buildings and land, the closing of schools and related services, the disappearance of traditions and customs, the contraction of local governments, which in absence of adequate solutions can only generate worse conditions, leading to the abandonment of areas rich in history, culture and traditions. It is important that these communities - spread all over Europe - are not abandoned since they are rich in cultural traditions, which need to be preserved with a view to new developments, intended as "intelligent" rebirth and recovery.The focus of KiNESIS is to converge the interest of different stakeholders by recalling various skills around abandoned villages to make them "smart" and "attractive".Keeping in mind the triangular objectives of cooperation and innovation of research, higher education and business of the Knowledge Alliance action, the project aims are: i) revitalising depopulated areas by stimulating entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial skills; ii) creating local living laboratories, shared at European level, in which the exchange of knowledge, best practices, experiences can help promote social inclusion and entrepreneurial development;iii) experimenting new, innovative and multidisciplinary approaches in teaching and learning; iv) facilitating the exchange, flow and co-creation of knowledge at a local and global level.
