General information
University of Twente
Department of Engineering Technology
Department of Behavioral Sciences
Drienerlolaan 5
PO Box 217
7500 AE Enschede
www.utwente.nl
Research target University of Twente
The University of Twente (UT) is an entrepreneurial research university. It sets great store by the useful application of knowledge in society. In here, the university believes that a multidisciplinary approach will stimulate innovation in science and society alike. Patents, life-long learning programmes, and spin-off companies testify to this commitment, as does UT’s intensive involvement in research programmes that enhance knowledge infrastructure in the Netherlands.
From the outset, the University of Twente has sought to put the applied sciences in a wider social context. It offers research and degree programmes in technology, and in the social and behavioural sciences. In here the emphasis is put on nanotechnology, process technology, engineering, information & communication technology, the biomedical sciences as well as business sciences and behavioural sciences.
Main research areas of the involved research groups of the UT
Faculty of Engineering Technology – Laboratory of Design, Production and Management (LDPM)
The Laboratory of Design, Production and Management of the UT, and in particular its section Design Engineering, focuses on the development of new design methodologies and tools. A main research area regards the development of the Scenario Based Design (SBD) methodology, which aims at supporting the designer in obtaining a more complete and reliable overview of the problem to be solved by means of use scenarios. The research on SBD momentarily incorporates research projects, all developing new design methods, however focusing on different aspects, i.e.:
Integration of SBD with the use of virtual reality and gaming techniques;
Supporting designers in dealing with the dynamics of a use situation;
Supporting the design process by providing tools to investigate the interactions between potential users and potential products by means of synthetic environments;
Formalisation of the definition of scenarios in order to enable the automatic generation and selection of relevant scenarios.
Faculty of Behavioral sciences – Department of Philosophy
The UT’s department of Philosophy hosts the Center for Philosophy of Technology and Engineering Science (CEPTES), a nationally leading research center in the philosophy of technology with an excellent reputation. Research within CEPTES concerns the philosophical analysis of technology and its role in society.
How does DfU fit the defined research areas
The LDPM’s research on SBD is strongly embedded in a large international network of human-machine interaction and usability related research. Together with T-Xchange, LDPM realised a sophisticated Virtual Reality Lab in autumn 2005. The Virtual Reality Lab provides opportunities for demonstrating, simulation and testing of new product ideas in virtual or synthetic (partly real, partly virtual) environments.
As shown above, the research within CEPTES concerns the philosophical analysis of technology and its role in society. An important field of expertise within the center is the social role of technological products, and the ethical aspects of their design. Research projects focus on developing:
Conceptual frameworks for analyzing the impact of product design on the actions and experiences of human beings;
Ethical approaches and methodologies to take product impacts on user behavior into account in the ethics of technology design.
Faculty of Engineering Technology – Laboratory of Design, Production and Management (LDPM)
Fred van Houten
Mascha van der Voort
Mieke Brouwer
Frederik Hoolhorst