Examples of valorisation

Postacademic education
Postacademic education as provided in Dutch faculties of Law is an institutionalized form of valorisation aimed at professional users. Practicing lawyers have a statutory obligation to take regular follow-up courses as part of their continuing education. Faculties of Law in Dutch universities provide some of these courses, including lectures on current legal trends, courses dealing with specific topics in depth and specialist training courses. These postacademic education courses not only give the lecturers an opportunity to pass new knowledge and insights on to practicing lawyers but also refresh their own knowledge of current events and issues of importance in day-to-day practice. In other words, in these courses knowledge is exchanged both ways.

NWO’s CATCH programme
The objective of the NWO CATCH (Continuous Access To Cultural Heritage) programme is to provide access to information about the cultural heritage of the Netherlands in digital form. IT and data visualization researchers work together in this programme with Dutch cultural heritage institutions such as the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Royal Library), the National Archives and the Audiovisual Foundation (Stichting Beeld en Geluid). The programme offers researchers the opportunity to investigate possible new applications and develop innovative solutions. The overall result of the programme is to ensure better access to the collections that form part of the Dutch cultural heritage for curators as well as for members of the public.

De Vreedzame School
De Vreedzame School (The Peaceful School) is a programme for primary schools designed to promote social competencies and a feeling for democratic citizenship in young children. It consists of training courses for the teachers, education kits for each year of the primary school and modules for training pupils to be class mediators. This programme was developed and introduced because it is now a statutory duty of all Dutch schools to play an active role in promoting citizenship and social cohesion. Micha de Winter, professor of Social Education and Youth Policy at the University of Utrecht, and his colleagues were involved in the development and evaluation of the programme. One of their main concerns was to ensure that the underlying concept was evidence-based – that is, based on practical experience and correct scientific insights.

Science shops
Science shops often work closely together with interest groups. In one case, [1] a group of concerned citizens approached the scientific advice and mediation bureau at the University of Groningen with complaints about the noise made at night by the wind turbines that had been erected in their neighbourhood. Research showed that the officially approved models that had been used to calculate the noise nuisance produced by such turbines, and as a basis for the decision to install them, were no longer able to give an accurate prediction of the behaviour of the wind turbines currently in use, which are much higher than those for which the models had been developed. Strong winds are often found at night-time at heights of about 100 m, while the wind tends to die down at ground level. As a result, the rotation of the wind turbines generates high levels of noise that are not damped by the low winds at ground level. This finding has a substantial effect. The Dutch government has decided [2] to modify the official model for predicting the noise that will be produced by planned wind turbines on the basis of the research performed by the science shop at the University of Groningen. This modification would not have been possible if there had been no facilities for members of the public to place this problem on the scientific research agenda. This study not only served the needs of the public, but also formed the basis for a PhD thesis.[3]

Bringing up teenagers
Dr. Loes Keijsers, who has been working in the Adolescent Development Research Centre of Utrecht University since 2005, 4 wrote the book Waarom tieners zo irritant kunnen zijn. en hoe je daar als ouder mee kunt leren leven (Why teenagers can be so irritating, and how parents can learn to cope with them) [4]. She stated that this book would be useful to various professionals such as social workers and teachers in secondary vocational education (mbo) and higher professional education (hbo), but her principal target group is parents of teenage children. She helps these parents to understand their children’s behaviour, and indicates ways of discussing important issues with them. Parents of adolescent children are obviously the best possible field experts on the behaviour of their children, and Dr. Keijsers is well aware of this fact. When she gives lectures on her book, she often gets questions from parents that provide the inspiration for further research.

Kieskompas
Kieskompas (the Electoral Compass) is designed to help Dutch voters who are not sure which party to support. It is best known for the online questionnaires it produces shortly before each general election. It was founded by Andre Krouwel, a former researcher at VU University Amsterdam, who is now the director of Kieskompas.

TV programme
Theologian/philosopher Theo de Wit from Tilburg University [5] spoke on tolerance on the Lux TV programme produced by the Dutch religious broadcasting channel IKON. [6] This is one of the topics he deals with as a researcher. He helped viewers to understand a number of current trends by focusing on the concept of tolerance and showing how it applies to recent events.

Software problems at CERN
The software of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN just outside Geneva was behaving erratically in 2011. CERN’s own programmers were unable to track down the problem, and called in the help of IT specialists from Eindhoven University of Technology, including Jeroen Keiren [7]. They examined the control software and managed to locate the problems in the system’s twenty to thirty thousand separate components [8]. The CERN software represented a practical problem on which the Dutch researchers could test their knowledge. The collaboration with CERN has been continued in the VOCHS (Verification of Complex Hierarchical Systems) project, for which researcher Tim Willemse (also from Eindhoven University of Technology) has received NWO funding.

State Commission for review of the Dutch constitution
The State Commission headed by Judge Wilhemina Thomassen [9] was mandated to deliver recommendations on the desirability of amending the Dutch Constitution. Most of the members of the Commission were academics attached to Dutch universities. It goes without saying that the recommendations delivered by the Commission had an impact on all Dutch citizens. Nevertheless, the Commission submitted its opinion to the Dutch cabinet (the fourth cabinet headed by Jan Peter Balkenende). In this context, the cabinet can be regarded as a professional user of the knowledge developed by the Commission. The Commission’s recommendations were debated by the First and Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament, who can also be regarded as professional user groups in this context.

Pasteur's quadrant
Donald E. Stokes identified two dimensions of scientific research. One dimension is of the quest for fundamental understanding; the other dimension is the consideration of use. This gives rise to four quadrants. Stokes called the top right-hand quadrant, which contains user-inspired basic research, Pasteur's quadrant, since most of the work performed by the great French researcher Louis Pasteur was fundamental research needed to solve very practical problems. 

Perianal dermatitis
Immunologist Jon Laman from the University of Groningen [10] studies perianal dermatitis together with his colleagues Johanneke van Embden and Leo van Lieshout. This complaint is a form of skin irritation that can occur in patients after major bowel surgery, in children after radiotherapy for cancer and in healthy babies who suffer from nappy rash. It can cause a great deal of pain and other complaints that have an adverse effect on the quality of life, leading to a lot of unhappiness for patients and the parents of young children. Until recently, there was no known cure for this complaint. Research by Jon Laman and his team [11] into the precise causes of perianal dermatitis and possible treatments of this condition led not only to a number of scientific publications but also to the development of a cream that provides an effective treatment for severe irritation. This cream contains protease inhibitors, which can be obtained from potatoes. This led Jon Laman and his colleagues to establish a working relationship with AVEBE, an international company with headquarters in the north of the Netherlands that produces starch and a wide range of other products, all derived from potatoes.

The Groentefroetels
Communication scientist Simone de Droog from Radbout University Nijmegen [12] made the growing problem of obesity in children the subject of her doctoral study. She examined the extent to which the media environment can encourage healthy eating habits in children. Her research led not only to a number of scientific publications and a PhD thesis, but also to the Groentefroetels [14]- humanized animal characters, Caterpillar, Rabbit, Monkey and Tortoise, who love eating fruit and vegetables. The Groentefroetels figure in stories that parents and teachers can read to children, and their exploits encourage the children to eat fruit and vegetables themselves. For example, Rabbit made a bold attempt to rescue a friend after he had been strengthened by eating carrots, and Caterpillar grew so long after eating apples that she could hang her balloons up high. Instead of trying to teach these young children to eat “healthy” food – a difficult concept at their age – the Groentefroetels provide them with role models who are big, strong and smart, characteristics that do appeal to them.

Magnetic cooling
Professor Ekkes Brück from Delft University of Technology [13] has been studying a new class of magnetocaloric materials – materials that change temperature when exposed to a varying magnetic field. He realized that these materials would provide a good alternative to the gases normally used as coolants in refrigerators and other cooling systems [16]. Not only do magnetocaloric materials have the right properties for use in cooling systems, but they are also environmentally friendlier and can be used to make a much quieter refrigerator. He and his group have made a fundamental study of the mechanism of action of magnetic cooling systems, in collaboration with the chemical giant BASF and with funding from the Dutch fundamental materials research foundation FOM. The study also focused on the composition of the alloys that could be obtained by the simplest production process and that gave the best cooling results.

The end of the world
aura van Broekhoven is a researcher and lecturer in the faculty of Archaeology at Leiden University, and Curator of the Central and South American collection at the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden [14]. She has studied the evidence for the commonly held belief that the Mayas had predicted the end of the world. It has been suggested that the Mayan calendar predicts that the world will come to an end on 21 December 2012. She gave her knowledge of the Mayan calendar the maximum possible impact by arranging an exhibition at the Museum of Ethnology [15], writing a book and making a number of other contributions in the media. Her basic message is very simple: the Mayas never predicted the end of the world.

Understandable language
Leo Lentz [21],  professor of Text Design and Communication at Utrecht University, studies the clarity of languages by examining existing documents in situations where it is very important that the language used should be very clear and easy to understand. The objects of his research included such texts as medical product information leaflets and letters to members of the public about mortgages and pensions.

The Dutch ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, the pharmaceutical industry, patient organizations and the Dutch consumer protection organization Consumentenbond attach great importance to good product information. Leo Lentz has links with all these parties, and believes that he could not do his work properly without them. While he may claim to know everything about what makes written communication readable, the other stakeholders have their own wishes and requirements. They can test-read new documents, and know what requirements medical product information leaflets have to meet if the medication in question is to be registered for use.

Leo Lentz’s experience of this type of collaboration was useful when he applied for research funding from NWO within the framework of their Understandable Language programme [22]. Members of the public often have difficulty understanding mortgages and pensions. The language used to explain such matters is often not as clear as it should be, and people are often confused by the sheer number of letters, brochures, offers, advisory talks and websites they are bombarded with. Leo Lentz develops solutions to these problems in consultation with banks and insurance companies.

Biofuel policy
Marc Schut from the Social Sciences department of Wageningen University [21] has been involved in several Research for Development programmes in developing countries. One of the topics he has studied is biofuel policy in Mozambique. Many investors are interested in the European marketing of biofuel derived from crops grown in Mozambique. The government of Mozambique wanted to develop a policy that would allow them to control these activities effectively. Marc Schut’s PhD thesis dealt with the use of scientific knowledge in such policy development processes. He investigated these processes by introducing relevant scientific knowledge that was not known to policy-makers in Mozambique but was known by his colleagues and himself, and by reflecting on this input.

He concluded that the researcher needs to be embedded in the policy development process in order to have a substantial impact on it. This is important in order to be able to understand the dynamics of the process, and it may be a necessary basis for the performance of unconventional research roles such as facilitative involvement, fund-raising or support of multi-stakeholder processes.

Sustainable Accessibility of the Randstad
Lori Tavasszy, professor of Freight Transport and Logistics in the department of Engineering Systems and Services at Delft University of Technology,[19] played a major role in the NWO programme Sustainable Accessibility of the Randstad in which several Dutch government departments also participated. He was project manager for a study of the future of freight transport in the Randstad.24 The deliverables of the study included greatly improved freight flow models that could be used as a basis for future policy development and innovation in this field.

Study of Parkinson’s disease
Mireille Claessens [20] and Ine Segers-Nolten [21] are researchers in the Nanobiophysics group at the  University of Twente. Their research group received a subsidy from the Dutch Parkinson’s Foundations to study the development of senile plaques. The presence of such plaques is an important sign of Parkinson’s disease. The research group from Twente found, however, that some people had many plaques but hardly any symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, while others had very few plaques but marked symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. They are now able to distinguish different types of senile plaques and to perform measurements on them, and have developed a new toxicity test for senile plaques. They have made a provisional patent application for this test, in which they describe the new knowledge developed in their study.

The Prostate Meter
The Prostate Meter (Prostaatwijzer in Dutch)[22] allows men who suspect that they may have prostate cancer to calculate their risk of actually having the disease on the basis of test results. The website also provides information on diagnosis and possible treatments. The Prostate Meter is a spin-off from the European Randomized study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC), [23] which revealed that early detection can reduce mortality by nearly a third, but also increases the risk of “over-diagnosis”. Cancers found by early detection often grow so slowly that they will probably never lead to serious complaints. The website mentions both sides of the medal: lower mortality, and higher risk of overdiagnosis, both caused by early detection.

Birth of a kingdom
Researchers at the Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands (Huygens ING) in The Hague developed a (Dutch-language) website entitled “The birth of the kingdom of the Netherlands: 1813 – 1815 in retrospect” in the run-up to the celebration of the bicentenary of the creation of the Dutch state [24].The researchers expected that this event would arouse great public interest, and that they would be bombarded with questions about how exactly the kingdom of the Netherlands came into being. The website was developed as a proactive way of answering these questions. But the researchers’ ambitions went further than that. They also focus on current historical views on the creation of the Dutch state to balance the opinions held in the past. Thus, the website does not restrict itself to the provision of factual information, but also teaches visitors to view their own history the way historians do nowadays.

Test for Parkinson’s disease
Medical researchers have long been looking for ways of using brain scans as a basis for the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. Such research requires large numbers of brain scans from patients in many different hospitals. Care must be taken to protect the privacy of these patients, and to store the scan data in a safe, easily accessible way. Not many doctors possess the skills needed for these tasks. Prof. Jos Roerdink of the University of Groningen specializes in scientific visualization and computer graphics. He realized that methods developed to help astronomers process Big Data in the field of astronomy could also be useful in this medical research. This led to the setting up of a collaborative project The objective of this project, known as GLIMPS, [25] GLucose IMaging in ParkinsonismS, was to develop an effective test for Parkinson’s disease. 

Dutch Song Bank
The Dutch Song Bank (Nederlandse Liederenbank) [26] provides access to the lyrics and music of 170 thousand Dutch songs. The website gives search tips and browsing routes, from songs about murder and drinking songs via the top 30 street songs to the literary canon of the Dutch song – all with audio recordings where available. Louis Grijp [27] of the Meertens Institute for the study and documentation of Dutch Language and Culture (part of the KNAW) and his team developed this data bank as a basis for the study of Dutch song culture. They continue to add new data, full lyrics and music of songs, and audio recordings, to make the Song Bank an up-to-date source of data for their own research. The

Dutch Song Bank is one of the Meertens Institute databases that are available online, as are the Dutch database of First Names (Nederlandse Voornamenbank) [28] and the Dutch Dialect Bank (Nederlandse Dialectenbank) [29].

The National IQ test
Margriet Sitskoorn, professor of Clinical Neuropsychology at Tilburg University, [30] plays a key role in the Dutch TV programme The National IQ Test.36 She explains difficult concepts and shares basic psychological knowledge with viewers, participants and presenters, thus helping to disarm prejudice and elucidate what IQ tests actually measure.

Scientists can play a variety of different roles in the media, not just as representatives of an entire discipline like Margriet Sitskoorn but also as experts in a specialized field like Middle-East expert Bertus Hendriks from the Clingendael Institute in The Hague, or historian Beatrice de Graaf from Utrecht University.  

Pronunciation of English
Laura Rupp [31] is a Senior Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics at VU University Amsterdam, and studies English pronunciation, in particular the pronunciation of non-native speakers, and more particularly the pronunciation of English by native Dutch speakers [32]. She knows the kind of pronunciation mistakes Dutch speakers of English are likely to make. She shares this knowledge in various ways. She has written a pronunciation guide subtitled “Your Dutsj eksent is bat for your selery”. She judges the English of prominent figures in Dutch society who have been nominated for the Clear Language prize offered annually by the Language Centre of VU University Amsterdam,[33] and she gives workshops and training courses [34] on English pronunciation for professionals.

Colofon
This e-publication is an initiative of the Rathenau Instituut and part of the projects 'Valorisation as knowledge process' and 'Valorisation in the social sciences and humanities.'

Authors: Leonie van Drooge and Stefan de Jong
Web-design: Herbert Boland
Images: through the interviewees and Wikimedia

Please cite as: Leonie van Drooge and Stefan de Jong. Valorisatie: onderzoekers dan al veel meer dan ze denken - e-publicatie met voorbeelden en handvatten om zelf valorisatie te organiseren.The Hague: Rathenau Instituut, 2015.