Titel Promotor Affiliaties "Korte inhoud" "PROTECT: Protecting Personal Data Amidst Big Data Innovation" "Paul De Hert" Metajuridica "Abstract: The overall goal of PROTECT is to grow a new generation of 14 Early Stage Researchers (ESRs), as PhDs graduated via a unique multidisciplinary, inter-sectoral and international European Training Network ETN). The network will investigate the protection of rights and interests of individuals and groups impacted by the continuous large-scale analysis of personal data, while still enabling the economy and society to benefit from rapid innovation in digital applications that collect and use this data. The PROTECT ESRs will implement a Personal Career development Plan (PCDP) that will enable them to integrate and apply arguments, analyses and tools from across the fields of law, ethics and knowledge engineering, so that they can take on leading research and data scientist roles within digital services industry and public policy sectors too address challenges of data protection, data ethics and data governance. The rate of technological innovation, now accelerated by big data and machine learning invariably outpaces public policy debate and the development of new regulation for the protection of personal data. This come as the scale and social impact of data analysis is rapidly increasing. Tech companies, especially SMEs, face complex legal and ethical implications resulting from the collection of personal data from users. The pace of change and its complex technical nature serves to overload individuals and enterprises in considering the impact of use of their personal information, especially when this use also delivers attractive personalisation of services. PROTECT ESRs will develop new ways of empowering users of digital services to understand the risks they take with their rights and interests when they go online and offer new ways to enable companies to incorporate privacy, data protection and broader ethical considerations into the development of digital services, even as they are face growing commercial and competitive demands to exploit personal data." "Essays on technology development in entrepreneurial ventures." "Bart Van Looy" "Onderzoekseenheid Management, Strategie & Innovatie (hoofdwerkadres Leuven)" "The first part of the PhD project focusses on the dichotomy between large and small firms in the process of technological progress and innovation. Prior research discusses how small and large firms play different but complementary roles in the innovation process (Baumol 2004, Balasubramanian and Lee 2008). Small firms are seen as a vehicle of entrepreneurship  and radical innovation. Large incumbent firms are portrayed as opting for incremental innovations as a result of the oligopolistic competition with other large incumbents in high-tech industries. Oligopolistic forces drive them towards less risky and path-dependent innovations. Interests in existing products and markets (including their scale) bias their assessment of new ideas, especially when they bear the capacity to disrupt their current business (Henderson 1990). The implementation of routinized innovation management processes further results in streams of incremental improvements to existing products (and processes) originating from incumbents. The creation of more radical and experimental ideas encompassing more uncertainty and risks, is more likely to originate from small entrepreneurial ventures. Notice however that current empirical evidence in this respect is limited (anecdotal/case based evidence, or evidence based on (limited) samples of firms).This first part was initiated by the ambition to create a more exhaustive picture, by relating all technological activity undertaken by firms to firm size on the level of the EU (EU-28). We have been successful in achieving a large scale mapping of patents to business register firms based on name harmonization techniques described in Callaert et al. (2011). The exercise illustrates the prevalence of small and medium sized firms (SMEs) in corporate patenting in Europe (Vervenne et al. 2014). In a follow up paper, we relate the distribution of R&D and patenting between large and small firms to changes in labor productivity at the macro level (Vervenne and Van Looy  2016). Findings suggest that small firms contribute to an increase in labor productivity in a distinctive manner; for young small firms however this finding appears conditional on the maturity of the innovation system in which they are embedded. The latter finding provides empirical support for the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship (Acs et al., 2013), with a young small firm sector that is capable of outperforming large incumbents in terms of innovative impact but quite likely only to the extent they can operate in the vicinity of such large local R&D investors.In the second part of the PhD project we take the perspective of the large firm. Prior research has proven that scientific progress is an important driver of economic growth (Jaffe, 1989; Adams, 1990). Scientific discoveries create technological opportunities that can be exploited by firms to satisfy existing or latent market demands (Scherer, 1965; Klevorick et al., 1995). Its catalyzing role in shaping technological progress takes various forms. It expands the pool of theory, data, technique and problem-solving capability that can be employed in industrial R&D (Leten et al., 2016). In a more direct way, science can propose solutions to older practical problems. By serving as a map that helps researchers to avoid dead end streets in research, it can contribute to the efficiency of search processes (Leten et al., 2016; Klevorick et al., 1995; Fleming & Sorenson, 2004). Evidence has been obtained in earlier studies (Deng et al., 1999; Simeth & Cincera, 2015) that the extent to which patent portfolios of listed, incumbent firms cite science can be reliably associated with their stock returns. Based on large-scale access to detailed meta-information regarding that cited science we provide an attempt to contribute to this line of research. More specifically we explore the economic implications of timing in scientific knowledge sourcing. Preliminary findings suggest that it pays off for large firms to be fast in the absolute sense and slow in the relative sense. Stated otherwise, markets value the use of science that is recent in terms of time that has elapsed between scientific breakthrough and technological application but at the same time apply a discount to science that is new when it comes to being associated with technological applications. Current research explores the dynamics potentially underlying these seemingly contradictory findings." "Factory-in-a-day richt zich op het verbeteren van het concurrentievermogen van Europese industriële KMO's" "Joris De Schutter" "Robotica, Automatisering en Mechatronica (RAM)" "Factory-in-a-Day aims at improving the competitiveness of European manufacturing SMEs by removing the primary obstacle for robot automation; installation time and installation cost. The high costs result in payback periods, making the investment in robotized automation economically unattractive. Factory-in-a-Day will reduce the installation time (and the related cost) from months to one single day. The project follows the steps of such an installation day.New standardized arms, mobile platforms, and hands are combined with 3D printed custom parts to be designed in a matter of hours from novel design templatesRobots are placed in an unaltered production location, where new self-calibration routines and a novel software framework allow effortless interconnection of robot components and existing machineryFor selected application domains (e.g. mould finishing and assembly) a set of novel learnable skills (cf. """"Apps"""") allow rapid teaching of the production tasksThe robots collaborate safely with humans in a shared un-fenced workspace due to safe robot arms with dynamic obstacle avoidance, made possible by novel proximity-sensing skin and online path re-planning algorithms. Augmented reality lets the robots project their intended motion plans to inform the workersFinally, Factory-in-a-Day also innovates the organizational aspects of robot installation.The project is driven by Europe’s top robotics researchers (e.g. TUD, KUL, TUM, Fraunhofer) and industry players (Philips, Universal Robotics, Siemens, Materialise). The second-largest temp agency Randstad and its participating client SMEs will test hybrid human-robot teams performing short-batch production work. Together with novel certification procedures proposed in Factory-in-a-Day and strong , Europe-wide dissemination targeted at manufacturing industry, the technological and organizational innovations are poised to radically change the robot automation sector." "GEAVANCEERDE technologische oplossingen gekoppeld aan maatschappelijk georiënteerd begrip en bewustzijn voor het ontwrichten van mensenhandel" "Peggy Valcke" "Onderzoekseenheid KU Leuven Centrum voor IT & IE Recht" "VANGUARD aims to strengthen the fight against trafficking in human beings (THB) at the nexus of advanced technological solutions, understanding, awareness raising, and training in order to disrupt the trafficking chain at an early stage and address the culture of impunity. In particular, VANGUARD aims to provide an improved intelligence picture of THB, with particular focus on THB for purposes of sexual exploitation, labour exploitation, and forced criminality. This will be achieved through developing a modular and trustworthy suite of tools for detecting, identifying, investigating, and preventing online-facilitated THB activities and THB-related activities at (border) checkpoints based on the analysis of online multimedia content and multimodal streams, by leveraging the latest advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI). It will also address the societal dimensions of THB through improved understanding and engagement with relevant actors, improved strategies of international cooperation, increased awareness, and better evidence-based policymaking. The capacity of end users (including Police and Border Guard Authorities) will be further enhanced and will enable them to tackle such criminal activities in an effective manner based on advanced tools and solutions and on innovative training curricula. VANGUARD will be validated in field tests and demonstrations in three operational use cases. Extensive training, hands-on experience, joint exercises, and training material will boost the uptake of VANGUARD tools and technologies. With a Consortium of seven Police and Border Guard Authorities (including from countries of origin and transit of THB networks and countries neighbouring Ukraine), one Police Academy, eight research/academic institutions, four industry partners (including two SMEs), two CSOs, and one International Organisation, VANGUARD delivers a strong representation of the challenges, requirements, and tools to meet its objectives." "Een spelwijziging in continue biosensing: moleculair ontworpen, op affiniteit gebaseerde nanoschakelaars voor persoonlijke monitoring" "Jeroen Lammertyn" "Mechatronica, Biostatistiek en Sensoren (MeBioS)" "Generic technology that allows continuous sensing of a wide range of biomolecular parameters could revolutionise patient monitoring and enable truly personalised therapy. Commercial sensors are available for continuous monitoring of glucose, but do not exist for other molecules that are important for monitoring disease status and treatment effect, including peptides, proteins, hormones, and drugs. The ambition of CONSENSE is to provide a game change in continuous biomolecular sensing by combining advanced molecular engineering with tailored optical detection technologies to yield generic, affinity-based biosensing technologies. CONSENSE will focus on the construction of biomolecular nanoswitches that translate molecular binding into robust and well-defined conformational changes at length scales that can be detected by selected optical detection methods, providing unique possibilities to distinguish between specific and nonspecific binding. While the applications for this new technology are wide and varied, within CONSENSE we will focus on immune monitoring in critical care settings, where patients have an urgent need for continuous monitoring related to inflammation and immunotherapy. CONSENSE brings together internationally leading pioneers in biomolecular switch engineering with research groups that have an excellent track record in biosensor development using advanced optical approaches, including two high-tech companies that have spun out from these groups. The consortium is completed by a strong network of partner industries and organisations, including four large medical technology companies, clinical experts, and six SMEs providing specific technological expertise and training. The consortium will provide exceptional training to 15 ESRs, allowing them to develop professionally and perform world-class research that will fundamentally advance the field of continuous biomolecular monitoring for healthcare." "Ontwikkeling, diagnostiek en preventie van gendergerelateerde somatische en mentale comorbiditeiten bij het prikkelbare darm syndroom in Europa" "Lukas Van Oudenhove" "Translationeel Onderzoek van Gastro-enterologische Aandoeningen (TARGID)" "Mental (anxiety and depression) and non-mental (fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome) comorbidities are highly prevalent in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), with over 60 million Europeans affected, mostly women, by devastating manifestations, impaired treatment and quality of life. Estimated costs are €43 billion/year for IBS, mostly derived from comorbid IBS. Our hypothesis is that comorbid IBS represents a distinct clinical entity, arising from distorted brain-gut communication with a unique, specific, but undefined pathophysiological origin, differing from IBS alone. DISCOvERIE was created to advance the understanding of its causative mechanisms. Identification, validation and comprehension of these mechanisms will help stratify these patients into distinct clinical phenotypes, improving disease management, increasing quality of life and reducing socioeconomic costs. In particular, we will deliver specific comorbid-IBS physiopathological knowledge as clinical guides and protocols for newly created, hospital-based, transversal and multidisciplinary units for implementing personalized management and wellbeing of European citizens and to position Europe as a global leader in comorbid IBS personalised medicine. We will also deliver prognostic and therapeutic biomarkers and patents, technological innovation via e-health tools for personalized assessment of clinical/nutritional/physical activity and disseminate new knowledge widely. Impact will be assessed by recording media presence, scientific publications and by monitoring health-related quality of life of patients and promoting cost-effective care. To this end we have created a user board involving patient associations, clinical specialists, European healthcare experts, large pharma and SMEs representatives. We will also promote the creation of a European Reference Network for comorbid IBS involving healthcare providers across Europe." AI4EU "Katrien Beuls" "Informatica en Toegepaste Informatica" "Artificial Intelligence is a disruptive technology of our times with expected impacts rivalling those of electricity or printing. Resources for innovation are currently dominated by giant tech companies in North America and China. To ensure European independence and leadership, we must invest wisely by bundling, connecting and opening our AI resources. AI4EU will efficiently build a comprehensive European AI-on-demand platform to lower barriers to innovation, to boost technology transfer and catalyse the growth of start-ups and SMEs in all sectors through Open calls and other actions. The platform will act as a broker, developer and one-stop shop providing and showcasing services, expertise, algorithms, software frameworks, development tools, components, modules, data, computing resources, prototyping functions and access to funding. Training will enable different user communities (engineers, civic leaders, etc.) to obtain skills and certifications. The AI4EU Platform will establish a world reference, built upon and interoperable with existing AI and data components (e.g. the Acumos open-source framework, QWT search engine..) and platforms. It will mobilize the whole European AI ecosystem and already unites 80 partners in 21 countries including researchers, innovators and related talents. Eight industry-driven AI pilots will demonstrate the value of the platform as an innovation tool. In order to enhance the platform, research on five key interconnected AI scientific areas will be carried out using platform technologies and results will be implemented. The pilots and research will showcase how AI4EU can stimulate scientific discovery and technological innovation. The AI4EU Ethical Observatory will be established to ensure the respect of human centred AI values and European regulations. Sustainability will be ensured via the creation of the AI4EU Foundation. The results will feed a new and comprehensive Strategic Research Innovation Agenda for Europe." "Er komt een robotrevolutie in de precisielandbouw" "Herman Bruyninckx" "Robotica, Automatisering en Mechatronica (RAM)" "ECHORD++ will achieve its goal by implementing three different instruments: the Experiments, Public end-user Driven Technological Innovation (PDTI), and the Robotics Innovation Facilities (RIFs). With the Experiments and PDTI, ECHORD++ offers research consortia funding to develop robotics technology for real use-cases. The RIFs provide a unique chance to try out new business ideas and make field tests at zero risk.These tools are tailor-made to meet the demand for innovative robotics technologies of the manufacturing industry, mainly Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with small lot sizes and the need for highly flexible solutions, and public bodies, looking for robotics technology at competitive prices for tender processes. The research consortia in ECHORD++ are composed of partners from industry, academia or research institutes in conjunction with the potential users of the robotics technology.Formulated in terms of means and ends, the project strives to:encourage European research institutions and robot manufacturers to work closely together at an operational level by means of the execution of experiments – with the goal to develop new research excellence and bring technology forward;enable different user groups (companies, public institutions, research organisations, …) to get easy access to state-of the art robotic hardware, software and scientific expertise for know-how transfer by means of providing the infrastructure in the RIFs;enable research institutions, robot manufacturers and public bodies to explore new application fields and start research & development (R&D)-work for markets that would otherwise not be addressed, by means of PDTI activities;extract, consolidate and broadcast the actual progress achieved in the different instruments to the community of robot manufacturers and research institutions and beyond by means of continuous monitoring, reporting and public relations." "Brugproject onderwijs en economie." "Katia Campo" "Onderzoekseenheid Marketing (hoofdwerkadres Antwerpen), Onderzoeksgroep Accounting (hoofdwerkadres Antwerpen)" "TRANSKNOWLEDGE wil medium- en hoogtechnologische KMOs ondersteunen en helpen groeien in hun ondernemerschap, ondersteund door de kennis van Master studenten Handelswetenschappen en MBA studenten van Flanders business school. Studenten zullen hun kennis in soft-skills gebruiken om de KMOs te helpen groeien. TRANSKNOWLEDGE wil studenten uit het hoger onderwijs warm maken voor ondernemerschap door een zeer direct contact met ondernemers in hun dagdagelijkse activiteiten. Dit creëert een win-win situatie omdat studenten en bedrijfsleiders van elkaar kunnen leren. Bovendien brengt het een evolutie tot stand van een adhoc samenwerking naar een structurele samenwerking tussen de partners; KU Leuven @ Thomas More Antwerpen, Voka Kamer van Koophandel Mechelen en Flanders Business School." "Dynamiek van de zonnecorona in het tijdperk van data-intensieve observaties" "Tom Van Doorsselaere" Plasma-astrofysica "The aim of this proposal is to establish close research collaboration between several leading European and South American research teams specialising in solar physics; and gain new, paradigm-changing knowledge about dynamic processes in the solar atmosphere, through the systematic research staff and knowledge exchange and joint research efforts exploiting existing data and facilities, including innovative data analysis techniques based on the machine-learning approach.The expected scientific impact is a major development of our knowledge of the key physical processes operating in the solar atmosphere, including breakthroughs in revealing the coronal heating mechanism, transformative progress in our understanding impulsive energy realises such as solar flares and CMEs, major development of MHD wave theory, and first application of machine-learning techniques in the study of solar atmospheric wave processes. The project includes four scientific work packages which address specific key challenges of modern solar physics and heliophysics: quasi-periodic pulsations in solar flares, heating of the solar atmosphere, and large and fine scale evolution of CMEs, and a communication and dissemination work package. The expected economic and technological impacts include gaining first-hand experience in the analysis of complex oscillatory processes, experience in designing and applying machine-learning techniques for pattern recognition, novel diagnostic techniques of input parameters for space weather forecasting models, creating a ground for knowledge exchange with local industries, and production of highly-skilful specialists in numerical modelling and data analysis. The expected societal impact is strengthening the research links between the European and S. American research communities; improving the public awareness of modern solar and heliophysics, and motivating school students to pursue careers in science."