Name Responsible Activity "Technique and Budget" "Patrick Van Kenhove" "The department 'Technology and Budget' provides logistical support to the Faculty of Economics and Business" "Organisation Support" "Floris Van den BroeckJanine van Vessem" "The Organisation Support Team is responsible for the finances and budget, personnel policy and facility management of the INBO." "Operations Research and Statistics Research Group (ORSTAT) (main work address Leuven)" "In operations research, a challenging research area is combinatorial optimization. Next to exact methods such as branch-and-bound, branch-and-price, also approximation algorithms are studied. Assignment and scheduling problems, winner determination problems and research on client-oriented vehicle routing problems are some of the subjects under study. Further emphasis is placed on machine scheduling, resource-constrained project planning and on project portfolio management. Deterministic approaches as well as methods taking the uncertainty into account are investigated. Additionally, nonparametric frontier based methods are studied both theoretically and empirically with applications in a variety of economic domains (e.g., finance, microeconomics and macroeconomics). The statistical research topics cover a range of challenging research subjects. Currently, important topics arising with the availability of data in high dimensions are investigated, as well as topics related to the analysis of incomplete data. This requires dealing with identifiability, estimation and variable selection under sparsity, computational algorithms, robustness, and hypothesis testing. The results can be used in time series analysis, for graphical modeling of e.g. medical data, and for the analysis of duration data, coming from e.g. unemployment studies. Another research area is the design and analysis of experiments with applications in industry, marketing, transportation and health economics.Next to the methodological research, ORSTAT investigates computational aspects, both for statistics and for operations research. In this way the applicability of the proposed methods is facilitated and often software is made available through websites. " "LUCAS - Centre for Care Research and Consultancy" "Anja DeclercqChantal Van Audenhove" "KU Leuven LUCAS, Centre for care research and consultancy LUCAS is an interdisciplinary research centre of KU Leuven, active in the fields of care and welfare. Its mission is threefold: research, trainin g and consultancy. In all three areas, LUCAS brings together insights fr om policy, practice and research, and this in constant dialogue with all stakeholders. Over the past twenty years, LUCAS has specialise d in a number of crucial topics: social trends in care, care for the eld erly, mental healthcare, communication in care relationships, and welfar e, poverty and social exclusion.The key objective of LUCAS is to imp rove quality of life by initiating and supporting innovations in care pr actice and policy. This objective is realized by thorough research that sets national and international standards, as well as by building bridge s between research, policy, and practice. A participative research model enables LUCAS to bring together all stakeholders and to initiate and st imulate collaborations. LUCAS encourages critical reflection, methodical action and a research-orientated mentality in the different care actors . Frequently, research reports and scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals are published. See: (URL:http://www.kuleuven.be/LUCAS) www.kuleuven.be/LUCAS  " "Research Group Sustainable Development" "Huib Huyse" " Research is grouped into two research themes within this research group, Global Development and Environmental Policy respectively, which in turn are also split up into priority research lines.GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTHIVA  executes a diverse set of research and evaluation activities related to global development and development cooperation. Its research seeks to inform policy and practice and features the following areas of specialization.Actors in developmentTraditional actors in development: NGOs, bilateral donors, multilateral donorsEmerging actors in development: emerging economies, trade unions, private sector, citizen initiatives, migrant organisations, foundationsActors in the Global South: cooperatives, mutual health organisations, civil society organisationsThematic areasGlobal citizenshipGlobal trends in developmentEducation, labour market and developmentSocial economySocial protection and access to healthMethodology and mechanisms in developmentPlanning, monitoring and evaluation (PME), and organisational learningCapacity developmentDevelopment effectivenessCollaborative action researchENVIRONMENTAL POLICYHIVA has a broad experience in policy-relevant research on environmental policy and sustainable development. We are an established partner in national and international research programmes with our expertise on environmental policy evaluation and environmental taxation. In the field of sustainable development, our research is shifting towards the analysis of transitions, i.e. fundamental changes in societal systems. Furthermore, our team focuses on European and global environmental and climate governance.Core themesSustainable development (Sustainabi lity transitions and transition policy - Wellbeing and sustainable development- Governance for sustainable development)Economic and financial instru ments (Environmental taxes and subsidies - Environmentally harmful subsidies -Funding transitions)Environmental policy evaluation (Ex ante and ex post evaluations - Effectiveness and side effects of environmental policy)Adaptation to climate change (Social and economic impacts of floods)Global environmental governance (Chinese climate and energy policies - EU-Asiarelations - Resource governance and sustainable materials management)" "Information Systems Engineering Research Group (LIRIS) (main work address Brussels)" "Research topics of this unit are: business information systems and supply chain management" "Centre for Political Research" "The members of the Center for Political Research focus on the central institutions and processes of decision-making, inherent in contemporary democracies. Therefore, four major domains are central in their research strategy: elections, political parties and social organisations, parliaments and governments. In the analyses and publications both structural and cultural determinants of the functioning of democracies and its patterns of decision-making are taken into consideration, as well as recent dynamic developments along with the analysis of their historic roots. In this respect the Belgian political system is a privileged domain of research, especially from the perspective of comparative research. Futher information: (URL:http://www.kuleuven.be/politicalresearch) www.kul euven.be/politicalresearch." "Centre for Sociological Research" "Karin Hannes" "The main research topics at the Centre for Sociological Research are: work, organization, family, historic demography, population, health care, social policy, sociological theory, cultural studies, art, education, survey methodology and political opinion research.For more information about the research topics of the different research teams belonging to this department see : - Theoretical Sociology, Sociology of culture and Sociology of Education - Sociology of Labour and Organisational Sociology - Centre for Sociology of Family, Population and Health Care - Reserach Centre for Data Collection and Analysis - Sociology of Social Policy - Family Sciences Information, Documentation and Service Centre - Flemish Self-help Support Centre" "Inter-Actions Research Unit, Genk Campus" "Niels Hendriks" "Inter-Actions – situated at LUCA School of Arts in C-Mine Genk - bundles a series of research groups which focuses on design and artistic research, evoking inter-actions between people, domains and disciplines, while exploring the possibilities of old and new materials, artefacts, media, spaces and events.By separating “inter” from “actions”, the unit stresses that its research wants to stimulate people “acting (actions) together (inter)” in cross-disciplinary or participatory set-ups.Inter-Actions thus focuses on:The human and social aspect of design and art, but at the same time the unit also exploresThe material and technological potential of objects or media for provoking different interactions." "Intermedia Research Unit, Brussels Campus" "Steven Devleminck" "The unit stands for critical awareness of the impact of technological development on artistic practice. It is active in exploring and supporting the presentation of artistic research in exhibition form, through its program Show Research and its exhibition space Terrarium."