Vrije Universiteit Research Articles

The TheoCheM Group at the Vrije Universiteit.

This invited Team Profile was created by Trevor A. Hamlin, Pascal Vermeeren, Célia Fonseca Guerra, and F. Matthias Bickelhaupt of the TheoCheM group at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Paralympic Sports Classification: Need for Research Based on the Athlete's Origin of Impairment.

1 Department of Physical Education, Faculty of Education, Federal University of Bahia, Bahia, Brazil 2 Department of Sport Policy and Management, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium Corresponding author: * Rafael Lima Kons, PhD, Federal University of Bahia, Department of Education, Faculty of Education, ZIP-CODE: 40110-100, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, Phone: +55 48 3721-8530. E-mail address: [email protected] ORCID: Rafael L. Kons: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1615-5464 Jacqueline Martins Patatas: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6927-1456

Political compromises: A double edge sword

Political compromises: A double edge sword Associate Professor Mariken A.C.G. van der Velden at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam discusses how political compromises can hinder affect a functioning democracy. Key to a functioning representative democracy is political parties competing based on alternative policy ideas to improve society during campaigning periods and the very same political parties cooperating outside these campaign times. While this holds for all forms of democracy, the tension between conflict and cooperation is particularly acute in Europe's multiparty democracies with coalition governments.

Micro-foundations of dynamic capabilities to facilitate university technology transfer.

Within the university-industry ecosystem, improvement and innovation of technology transfer involve implementing appropriate dynamic capabilities. To answer the question-What are the micro-foundations of dynamic capabilities in university technology transfer?-this study investigates in-depth organizational-level dynamic capabilities in transferring university-based knowledge to business and society. Two qualitative case studies were deployed at organizational entities at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam: the Industry Alliance Office, and the Demonstrator Lab. These two organizations stimulate science- and business-oriented university technology transfer. In this context, the micro-foundations of the dynamic capabilities "sensing", "seizing" and "reconfiguring" are identified and discussed. For "sensing", which is the university's ability to explore the opportunities in the ecosystem, the micro-foundations are "selecting internal competency" and "sensing external partners". For "seizing", which supports universities in managing complementarity with industry and society, micro-foundations include "resource co-allocation" and "collaborative business model". The micro-foundations of "reconfiguring", through which universities maintain evolutionary fitness in the innovation ecosystem, are "strategic renewal", "establishing a university technology transfer-friendly environment", and "asset orchestration". This study provides researchers with a better understanding of how dynamic capabilities facilitate university technology transfer. Industrial practitioners and policymakers can consider the suggestions of the present study when pursuing collaboration with universities.

Multiple facets of cutting-edge mycorrhizal research: 11th International Conference on Mycorrhiza (ICOM 11), Beijing, China, August 2022: 11th International Conference on Mycorrhiza (ICOM 11), Beijing, China, 1-5 August 2022.

Multiple facets of cutting-edge mycorrhizal research: 11th International Conference on Mycorrhiza (ICOM 11), Beijing, China, August 2022: 11th International Conference on Mycorrhiza (ICOM 11), Beijing, China, 1-5 August 2022.

Written by Humans or Artificial Intelligence? That Is the Question

Ideas and Opinions14 March 2023Written by Humans or Artificial Intelligence? That Is the QuestionMichiel Schinkel, MD, Ketan Paranjape, MSc, PhD, and Prabath Nanayakkara, MD, PhDMichiel Schinkel, MDAmsterdam University Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Center for Experimental and Molecular Medicine, and Amsterdam University Medical Center, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Department of Internal Medicine, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands (M.S.)Search for more papers by this author, Ketan Paranjape, MSc, PhDAmsterdam University Medical Center, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Department of Internal Medicine, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands (K.P., P.N.).Search for more papers by this author, and Prabath Nanayakkara, MD, PhDAmsterdam University Medical Center, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Department of Internal Medicine, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands (K.P., P.N.).Search for more papers by this authorAuthor, Article, and Disclosure Informationhttps://doi.org/10.7326/M23-0154 SectionsAboutFull TextPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail Let us start with a quiz. In the Table, we present part of the introduction of an article published in Annals of Internal Medicine, next to an introduction generated by a software application called Chatbot that uses artificial intelligence (AI) (1, 2). Which of the 2 is generated by AI?Table. Part of the Introduction of an Article Published in Annals and a Version Generated by the AI-Powered ChatbotIntroductionOn 21 January 1677, “Brief Rule to Guide the Common People of New England How to Order Themselves and Theirs in the Small Pocks, or Measles” became the first medical publication ...

O.9.4 - European memory clinic clinicians’ preferences and needs for communication with patients: Presenter(s): Heleen Hendriksen, Alzheimer Center Amsterdam, Amsterdam Neuroscience, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam UMC, Amsterdam, Netherlands

O.9.4 - European memory clinic clinicians’ preferences and needs for communication with patients: Presenter(s): Heleen Hendriksen, Alzheimer Center Amsterdam, Amsterdam Neuroscience, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam UMC, Amsterdam, Netherlands

O.2.3 - The communitive needs of asylum seekers during vaccination and TB screening processes: Presenter(s): Antoon Cox, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), KU Leuven, King's College London, Belgium; Koen Kerremans, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium

O.2.3 - The communitive needs of asylum seekers during vaccination and TB screening processes: Presenter(s): Antoon Cox, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), KU Leuven, King's College London, Belgium; Koen Kerremans, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium

O.15.6 - Cues and concerns of seriously ill patients during advance care planning discussions with their GP: Presenter(s): Koen Pardon, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

O.15.6 - Cues and concerns of seriously ill patients during advance care planning discussions with their GP: Presenter(s): Koen Pardon, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

O.37.2 - Autonomy supportive decision-making in prenatal consultations: An interaction analysis.: Presenter(s): Joyce Kors, Amsterdam UMC, Faculty of Medicine, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Research in Education, Netherlands

O.37.2 - Autonomy supportive decision-making in prenatal consultations: An interaction analysis.: Presenter(s): Joyce Kors, Amsterdam UMC, Faculty of Medicine, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Research in Education, Netherlands

O.38.3 - Managing lifeworld issues during multilingual patient companion mediated emergency consultations: Presenter(s): Antoon Cox, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB, KU Leuven, King's College London; Yvan Leanza, Université Laval, Canada

O.38.3 - Managing lifeworld issues during multilingual patient companion mediated emergency consultations: Presenter(s): Antoon Cox, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB, KU Leuven, King's College London; Yvan Leanza, Université Laval, Canada

Dawn: A Proton's Tale of All That Came to Be

DAWN: A Proton's Tale of All That Came to Be by Cees Dekker, Corien Oranje, and Gijsbert van den Brink. Translated by Harry Cook. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2022. 166 pages, discussion questions. Paperback; $22.00. ISBN: 9781514005668. *Imagine that you could witness the entire history of the universe first-hand, from the big bang to the end of time. Perhaps, if you were a sentient yet patient proton, you would have the necessary longevity and attention span, and this idea could become your reality. Such is the premise of Dawn: A Proton's Tale of All That Came to Be. "Pro," as the proton protagonist is known to his chatty neighboring subatomic particles, is born from quarks in the first second after the big bang, blind and knowing nothing, but with an insatiable curiosity about what is happening, and why. Conversations with other particles born a split-second earlier soon produce in Proton a deep admiration for a skilled Creator, and a sense of wonder and anticipation about what they have seen and what will happen next. *Throughout several chapters, Pro confusedly and vividly experiences the onset of light, nuclear fusion, a supernova, and incorporation into a molecule as part of a carbon nucleus. Pro ends up in the dust cloud that forms Earth, eventually witnessing the origin of terrestrial life as part of an RNA molecule. A rumor among the subatomic particles that the Creator wants to make personal contact with one of the creatures generates a guessing game as they witness the progress of evolution. Which lifeform will it be? *When Homo sapiens arrive on the scene, the story shifts to tracking biblical narratives, and the subatomic particles begin asking each other more theological questions. The Creator makes contact with two humans, a chieftain couple in Africa. The Fall ensues when the couple and their tribe reject the Creator's instructions, much to the subatomic particles' surprise and horror. Pro and his neighbors are then able to witness key moments in the progress of redemption, becoming fly-on-the-wall observers to events in the lives of several important biblical characters. "How is the Creator going to fix things?" the particles ask each other. *At this point it becomes apparent what a colossal challenge the three authors (a nano scientist, a novelist, and a theologian)1 have taken upon themselves. They have tried to produce a gripping narrative in which the protagonist does not know the outcome, but Christian readers will. They have set out to tell an entertaining story of the history of the universe from a Christ-centered perspective, filled with imaginative details that are consistent with modern science but also with the biblical witness. They have charged into a literary no man's land between fiction and nonfiction. *Do they succeed? In many ways, admirably so. The merging of science and biblical witness is skillfully accomplished, respecting the integrity of each source of knowledge. To readers of this journal, the idea of a Creator patiently guiding the evolution of the universe and of life over billions of years in order to generate Earth and its humanity, followed by the increasingly intimate involvement of that Creator in redeeming humanity, is familiar. To many others, this idea will be revelatory. *If evaluated as a work of fiction, it would be safe to say that Dawn is wildly imaginative, yet it is also strangely hindered by the passivity of the narrating subatomic particles. "Imagine that you yourself could determine where you would like to go" (p. 28), they muse just before the first protocell develops. Pro witnesses and experiences history but cannot intervene. The subatomic particles can react, but they have no agency in the macroscopic world. They do not embark on a quest or a voyage of self-discovery. "Just go with the flow" (p. 29), one advises. The tropes of fiction, however, are probably the wrong standards for evaluating this book. *Dawn succeeds, in the end, as creative nonfiction--the memoir of a proton. Along the way, it retells the old, old story in an imaginative way. The authors have created one of the most accessible books on science and Christianity to come out in recent years. Even young adults will be able to enjoy it. *Note *1Cees Dekker, distinguished nano-scientist at Delft University of Technology; Corien Oranje, novelist/theologian and author of Christian children's literature; and Gijsbert van den Brink, theologian and holder of the Chair of Theology and Science, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. *Reviewed by David O. De Haan, Professor of Chemistry, University of San Diego, San Diego, CA 92110.

Hairy cactus parts make flowers stand out to bats

Animals that pollinate plants are incredibly important to life as we know it. Almost all crops grown by humans are pollinated by animals. While we all know that insects pollinate lots of plants, most of us are, generally, less familiar with the role that bats play in spreading pollen between plants. But bats are active at night, so how do plants attract bats if they can't see their colourful flowers? Ralph Simon from Nuremberg Zoo, Germany, and Wouter Halfwerk of Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands, believe that the cactus Espostoa frutescens from the Ecuadorian Andes uses the hairs around their flowers to help bats locate them using sonar.Working alongside Felix Matt of Philipps-University of Marburg, Germany, Vinicio Santillan of Universidad Católica de Cuenca, Ecuador, Marco Tschapka of the University of Ulm, Germany, and Merlin Tuttle of Merlin Tuttle's Bat Conservation, USA, Simon and Halfwerk tested their hypothesis by bouncing soundwaves off different parts of the cactus and recording the returning echoes just as a bat would. The team found that when sound rebounded off the stem, or column, of the cactus, they received a loud echo in response. In other words, a lot of sound was reflecting off the column of the cactus. The researchers saw a slightly quieter echo returning from the flowers. But when Simon and colleagues bounced sounds off the hairy, almost beard-like structure surrounding the flowers, they found that the hairs were absorbing the sound, and almost no echo was received by the recording device.Prior to this, many theories had been put forth about the purpose of these hairy growths on the cacti, from protection from predators to shielding new buds from the harmful effects of the sun at such high altitudes. However, Simon and colleagues thought that the hairy area around the flowers might be helping bat pollinators home in on the flowers themselves. To test their hypothesis, the researchers removed the flowers from the hairy area and pinned them to another part of the cactus, free from hairs. When the team bounced the sound off the hairless part of the cactus with the flower there, it was almost impossible to distinguish the echo coming from the flower amongst the echoes coming from the other parts of the cactus. If the flowers were still nested in their hairy homes, the contrast between echoes of the flowers and the almost non-existent echoes from the hairs made the flowers stand out against the hairy backdrop.The team then recorded calls from the bat pollinator, Geoffroy's tailless bat (Anoura geoffroyi), as they were approaching the flowers and compared these with the echoes they were receiving from the cacti. It turns out that the hairs are particularly good at absorbing sounds in the frequency of the bat's sonar calls, around 90 kHz. Simon and colleagues also noted that the bats’ ears would receive faint echoes bouncing off the hairy surface until the sonar hit a flower, which would then make the echoes much louder.The researchers suggest that because bats need to visit hundreds of flowers every night to recover how much energy they use throughout the day, having these hairy patches surrounding the flowers helps them save time searching – which helps the cactus as well. ‘Bats are very efficient pollinators that carry a lot of pollen in their fur and travel huge distances daily, so they can pollinate plants growing far apart’, states Simon. So, while many plants have evolved bright colours and delicious scents to entice pollinators to visit, these desert cactuses have gotten hairy instead.

Editorial Introductions.

Current Opinion in Oncology was launched in 1989. It is one of a successful series of review journals whose unique format is designed to provide a systematic and critical assessment of the literature as presented in the many primary journals. The field of psychiatry is divided into 15 sections that are reviewed once a year. Each section is assigned a Section Editor, a leading authority in the area, who identifies the most important topics at that time. Here we are pleased to introduce the Journal's Section Editors for this issue. SECTION EDITORS Gil AwadaGil AwadaGil Awada (1990) studied medicine at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Brussels, Belgium), graduating in 2015, and subsequently started his training in Internal Medicine. In June 2021, he successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled ‘Expanding the application of targeted therapies and immune checkpoint inhibitors in advanced melanoma and recurrent glioblastoma’, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Bart Neyns. He is currently finishing his residency in Medical Oncology at the Jules Bordet Institute, Belgium. Gil Awada performs clinical and translational research in the field of melanoma, investigating new applications of targeted agents, combination therapies and the use of novel clinical biomarkers (such as circulating tumor DNA and imaging). His work has been presented at national and international congresses and has been published in peer-reviewed journals. Oliver BechterOliver BechterOliver Bechter earned his MD at the University of Innsbruck, Medical School in Austria in 1998. During his residency he did a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Cell Biology, UTSouthwestern in Dallas, TX, USA. He earned his PhD in 2005 and is a board-certified Medical Oncologist and Hematologist since 2007. Since 2012 he is working at the University Hospital in Leuven Belgium and is a professor for Oncology at the Department of Oncology from the KU Leuven. His research focus is telomere biology in human malignancies and melanoma biology. His clinical focus is on malignant melanoma and skin cancers and he is principal investigator of several clinical trials with a focus on drug development of new immune-oncology drugs in melanoma. Jana JeschkeJana JeschkeJana Jeschke studied molecular medicine at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, and performed her PhD research at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA, in the groups of Prof. Nita Ahuja and Prof. Jim Herman and in collaboration with Prof. Baylin. During this time, she made several important discoveries in the field, including the identification and functional characterization of aberrantly DNA methylated genes in breast cancer and their assessment as novel biomarkers. In 2013, Dr Jeschke moved to Belgium to start a postdoctoral training in the Laboratory of Cancer Epigenetics at Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in Brussels. Under the supervision of her lead mentor Prof. Fuks and his long-time collaborator Prof. Sotiriou, a breast cancer expert from the Jules Bordet Institute in Brussels, she explored changes of various epigenetic modifications on DNA and RNA in breast and other cancers and the clinical relevance of these aberrations for cancer diagnosis and therapy. Her most notable works include the development of an epigenetic immune signature that predicts survival and response to chemotherapy in breast cancer (JCI 2017) and the discovery of m6A mRNA methylation changes in breast cancer and their impact on pathways driving cancer progression and therapy resistance (Nature Cancer 2021). For her research, Dr Jeschke was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS) in 2014. In 2022, she obtained the mandate of Chercheuse Qualifiée (Associate Professor) from the FNRS to start her own research group at ULB focusing on precision cancer epigenetics. Dr Jeschke is a member of the Belgian Association for Cancer Research (BACR), European Association for Cancer Research (EACR), American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and Cancer Epigenetics Society (CES) and a consultant for the “Belgian Superior Health Council”. She is an associate editor for the journal of Current Opinion in Oncology and regularly reviews for other journals publishing studies related to cancer and epigenetics.

Guest Editorial: Special issue on machine learning and deep learning algorithms for complex networks

Guest Editorial: Special issue on machine learning and deep learning algorithms for complex networks

Robot evolution: Artificial intelligence by artificial evolution

Robot evolution: Artificial intelligence by artificial evolution Most people think of evolution as a biological phenomenon that produced Life on Earth, plants, animals, and us, the Homo Sapiens. Within Computer Science, however, there is another view: evolution is seen as a metaphor for problem-solving, in particular, as a special approach to optimization, working with a ‘population' of solutions and improving them over time through repeated selection-reproduction cycles. This is the research of A.E. Eiben, the Professor of Computational Intelligence at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He notes that the vision of robot evolution foresees a radically new robotic technology where robots can reproduce, evolve, and learn. Robot evolution and development require significant efforts from highly trained experts which is not scalable. This world has an increasing need for novel algorithmic approaches and research tools to explore the space of bodies and brains together and solve the design problem (good body) and the control problem (good brain).In his team, he is discovering new methods needed to tackle complex environments without good models, not only simple, well-known conditions, such as, factories or living rooms.

Unsteady Aerodynamic Lift Force on a Pitching Wing: Experimental Measurement and Data Processing

This work discusses the experimental challenges and processing of unsteady experiments for a pitching wing in the low-speed wind tunnel of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The setup used for unsteady experiments consisted of two independent devices: (a) a position control device to steer the pitch angle of the wing, and (b) a pressure measurement device to measure the aerodynamic loads. The position control setup can pitch the wing for a range of frequencies, amplitude, and offset levels. In this work, a NACA-0018 wing profile was used with an aspect ratio of 1.8. The position control and the pressure measurement setups operate independently of each other, necessitating advanced signal processing techniques to synchronize the pitch angle and the lift force. Furthermore, there is a (not well-documented) issue with the (sampling) clock frequency of the pressure measurement setup, which was resolved using a fully automated spectral analysis technique. The wing was pitched using a simple harmonic sine excitation signal at eight different offset levels (between 6° and 21°) for a fixed amplitude variation (std) of 6°. At each offset level, the wing was pitched at five different frequencies between 0.1 Hz and 2 Hz (that correspond to reduced frequencies k ranging from 0.006 to 0.125). All the experiments were conducted at a fixed chord-based Reynolds number of 2.85 × 105. The choice of operating parameters invokes the linear and nonlinear behavior of the wing. The linear unsteady measurements agreed with the analytical results. The unsteady pressure measurements at higher offset levels revealed the nonlinear aerodynamic phenomenon of dynamic stall. This confirms that a nonlinear and dynamic model is required to capture the salient characteristics of the lift force on a pitching wing.

Implementation of Public Engagement Pedagogies in a Dutch University: From Individual Lecturers Towards an Institutional Approach

There is an increasing demand for universities to respond to societal needs with a broad range of societal actors. Accordingly, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam) aims to implement community service-learning (CSL) throughout its undergraduate and master’s programmes. Taking a broad conceptualisation of CSL as an approach to public engagement that seeks an integration between classroom-based learning activities and community-based activities, we interviewed lecturers (n=23) who are at the forefront of adopting CSL at VU Amsterdam about their experiences. Through the analysis of those experiences, we report in our findings valuable lessons on how a university may make the transition from individual and isolated public engagement initiatives towards an institutional approach. To further institutionalise public engagement pedagogies, there is a need to create a shared vision on CSL, to widely implement adequate reward and recognition structures for lecturers, and to implement different forms of institutional support for coordination and management of partnerships with community partners. A centralized office can assist with capacity building and knowledge sharing about how to design and assess CSL activities that promote students’ competences (including soft skills) and benefits to the community, while considering students’ readiness levels and incorporating adequate ethical standards.

Strategies to enhance immune cell activation & cancer cell killing

Abigail Pinchbeck, Assistant Editor, BioInsights, speaks to Karine Breckpot, Director, Laboratory for Molecular and Cellular Therapy (LMCT), Vrije Universiteit BrusselKarine Breckpot obtained a MSc in Biomedical Sciences in 1998 and a PhD in Medical Sciences in 2004, all at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB, Belgium). Following a postdoctoral stay at the Division of Infection and Immunity at the University College London (United Kingdom), she became a group leader and Assistant Professor in 2010 at the Laboratory for Molecular and Cellular Therapy (LMCT), VUB. She became a Tenured Professor in 2014 and Full Professor in 2019 at which point she became director of the research group LMCT. Her research is focused on cancer immunology and immunotherapy, designing novel immunotherapies focused on T cell activation using technologies such as mRNA, lentiviral vectors and antibodies, including camelid single domain antibodies. She was laureate of the Fund for Biotechnology award in 2005, received the Dr Karel-Lodewijk Verleysen award of the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine in 2011, the Melanoma Research Alliance young investigator award in 2017 and the BCLAS award in honor of Jean-René Maisin in 2019. She is (co)promotor of 15 defended and 16 ongoing doctoral theses and author on more than 135 Q1 publications.Technologies such as mRNA, lentiviral vectors, and nanobodies are vital tools in the immuno-oncology arsenal. In this article, Karine Breckpot, the director of the Laboratory for Molecular and Cellular Therapy (LMCT), explains how she applies the latest technology to her work in engineering dendritic cells for immune activation and T cells for cancer cell rejection – and her predictions for 2023 and beyond.

WVDM Living Lab: Sustainable renovation strategies for the VUB student residences of Willy Van Der Meeren

Like many institutions, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) strives for a sustainable approach to manage its architectural patrimony. This patrimony, with as an example the student residences in the heart of VUB its main campus, puts forward an important challenge. These residences, designed by architect Willy Van Der Meeren in 1971-1973, are generally recognized as architectural heritage, yet they need thorough yet economically feasible and future-oriented energy refurbishment if we want to extend their service life.The same challenge applies to many buildings in the Brussels Capital Region. Here, the number of housing units, as in the rest of Europe, increased significantly during the post-war period. A peak occurred at the end of the 1960s, when more than 7,000 new housing units were built annually. Like the student residences, these housing units are the witnesses of an innovative past but raise questions on thermal inertia, safety of accessible roofs, performance of aluminium window frames, façades containing asbestos, etc.Unfortunately, today’s practice shows that there is restricted time and resources to develop and compare alternative renovation strategies, lowering the ambitions in terms of heritage, energy, sustainability, and affordability. Therefore, in the WVDM Living Lab we took the opportunity to have researchers and project managers joining forces with practitioners. This project, that fits the Test-It program by Innoviris and is funded by EFRO and the Brussels Capital Region, with complementary investments from the infrastructure and patrimony office of VUB, provided oxygen to break through this lock-in.Using the student residences as a testbed for the development of sustainable renovation strategies for the former student residences and similar post-war heritage of Brussels, innovation in construction and in cooperation was found. First, the different consortia of designers, contractors and experts effectively developed and prototyped new design and construction solutions. Their proposals aligned heritage and sustainable material management in the idea of a circular economy and included for example the adoption of reversible connections and reused materials. Second, the consortia indicated that their mission to innovate also challenged their own organization and design process. Inspired by this experience, client and design team are convinced that working more closely together from the start of a construction project is crucial to reach innovative sustainable construction.