Thematic Working Groups & Accomplishments - DeSIRE Workshop 14 March 2022

The Thematic Working Group meeting of the DeSIRE programme took place on March 14th at “de Observant” in Amersfoort. It set the scene for fruitful discussions on:

• The work and future outlook of the thematic Working Groups;
• Brainstorming the accomplishments and plotting them on the Miro map;
• An introduction to Crowd Helix by Catalin Popa.

At the opening presentation, Tatiana Filatova welcomed new people to 4TU.RE, who shortly introduced themselves, with a special welcome to two Resilience Fellows from abroad: Maryam Naghibi and Arjuna Srinidhi.

Working Groups: discussion and outlook

Several representatives from the working groups presented the highlights of the accomplishments, which you can read about in the opening presentation, available at the bottom of the page.

We are currently focusing on the 5 domain-oriented team – around resilient Urban, Agri-Food, Transport/Supply Chain, Water and Energy/Cyber systems. In addition, our community hosts an active method-oriented Working Group on ‘Decision-making for Societal Resilience’ that holds monthly meetings to discuss issues related to deep uncertainty, and increasingly on networks, agent- based models, copulas, and participatory approaches. If you are interested in learning more and joining any of the Working Group webinars, please send an email to the corresponding chairs.

Alex joined remotely and introduced us to the Control Room of the Future at TU Delft. He invited us all to think about how this room can be used to explore real life events testing cyber-related disruptions to energy grids and impacts on other physical infrastructures, for example water defences. Read more in the 4TU.RE newsletter.

After a round of questions from the attendees, Tatiana concluded the discussion by mentioning that although the 4TU.DeSIRE program runs until the end of the year, we should think about how this program will lay a foundation for future research. The working groups will continue to play an important role in setting the agenda for future research within 4TU.RE Center.

Mapping out accomplishments

With regard to the future of the research collaboration, the Resilience Engineering concept map also plays a role. The map is a result a multi-year collaborative exploration of the question “What is Resilience Engineering” for the 4TU.RE community. Recently, Carissa Champlin, Ahmadreza Marandi, Maria Nogal Macho and Claudiu Forgaci worked together to develop an exercise to plot the community’s achievements on that map.

Carissa introduced and guided the exercise in which all attendees plotted their individual and shared accomplishments with respect to the 5 scientific domains of the 4TU.RE. If you didn’t attend the brainstorm, you’re most welcome to add your own accomplishments and add your views on the questions posed in the newly added discussion section.

Building the Resilience Engineering concept map continues to be a helpful means of finding common ground within 4TU.RE and will be used to explore white spots in which more research is needed for the future. Also, this vast concept map is a great source of inspiration to show the outside world what 4TU.RE stands for and is able to accomplish.

Crowd Helix

Catalin Popa, EU Grants Advisor working for the University of Twente, introduced us to CrowdHelix, a research consortia finding portal. 4TU has recently obtained an account which can be used by all of us. Please use this tool to plan for your future research collaborations and keep in mind that the Grants Office at your university is always willing to help with your next step in applying for a grant.

Contact details Grant Offices

Wageningen University & Research – Grants Office – Mascha Rasenberg - mascha.rasenberg@wur.nl
Eindhoven University of Technology – Research Support Network – Laura Pander - l.s.pander@tue.nl
Delft University of Technology – Marion Stenneke - m.stenneke@tudelft.nl
University of Twente – Grants Office: grants-office@utwente.nl – Catalin Popa: c.n.popa@utwente.nl