Wouter Schmidt 

• Friday 2 October 2026 at 4:30 PM
• Supervisors: Thierry Vanelslander, Edwin van Hassel & Claudio Ferrari
• The defence will take place at UCSIA, 
  Koningstraat 2, 2000 Antwerp
• Please contact Wouter (Wouter.Schmidt@uantwerpen.be) to inform him if you wish to attend the PhD defence before Tuesday 29 September 2026

Decarbonizing European container terminals: An economic feasibility study

European container terminals are under mounting pressure to move away from diesel-powered equipment, but the way forward is far from obvious. The available green alternatives are varied and mostly still unproven at a commercial scale, and each comes with its own financial and operational challenges. To make things harder, container terminals across Europe vary significantly, challenging research on this topic.
This PhD thesis takes on that uncertainty by building a dataset of more than a hundred European container terminals, identifying the green alternatives to diesel-powered equipment, and calculating their lifetime costs. This cost analysis goes beyond investment costs alone, factoring in operational costs, infrastructure needs, and the hidden social cost of emissions. The analysis is then scaled up to a European level, where the impact of different government policies on these lifetime costs is examined.

Mohammad Vaferi

• Tuesday 13 October 2026 at 4:00 PM
• Supervisors: Bruno De Borger & Theo Notteboom
• The defence will take place at the Prentenkabinet, Hof van Liere,
  University of Antwerp, Stadscampus,
  Prinsstraat 13, 2000 Antwerp
• Please contact Mohammad (Mohammad.Vaferi@student.uantwerpen.be) to inform him whether you wish to attend the PhD defence before Friday 9 October 2026

Optimizing Solutions to Improve Strategy in Maritime Management: Focusing on Impact of Developing LNG as Marine Fuel Towards Complying with IMO Regulations

This doctoral thesis examines the development of liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a marine fuel in response to increasingly stringent International Maritime Organization (IMO) emission regulations. As the shipping industry navigates a decisive energy transition, LNG has emerged as a mature alternative fuel, yet its adoption is constrained by a "chicken-and-egg" dilemma between infrastructure investment and confirmed demand. The thesis addresses this dilemma through three complementary perspectives: port competitiveness, fleet economics, and supply chain optimization.
The first part assesses the strategic role of LNG bunkering in port competitiveness and the economic feasibility of LNG for shipping fleets. Drawing on the Resource-Based View and Porter's Diamond Model, it evaluates how ports in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea -specifically Dubai and Sohar - can enhance their competitive position through LNG bunkering infrastructure. It then develops an analytical model to assess the financial feasibility of converting container vessels from heavy fuel oil to LNG dual-fuel engines, employing engine performance modelling and Net Present Value, Internal Rate of Return, and payback period analyses. The findings indicate that LNG is economically attractive relative to scrubbers and marine gas oil when the LNG-HFO price differential remains below 140 USD per metric tonne and emission control area exposure exceeds 44%, with fuel price spread identified as the dominant determinant of investment decisions.
The second part develops metaheuristic optimization models for maritime logistics and LNG distribution networks. It first addresses the containership feeder routing problem with port choice, integrating consolidation centre selection, feeder allocation, and ship routing decisions. It then introduces a two-stage LNG bunkering network problem - tankers delivering LNG from refineries to delivery ports and floating storage units, followed by bunker barges supplying cargo vessels at anchorage - formulated with capacity, time window, and priority-weighted demand constraints. An Iterated Local Search algorithm with four diversification strategies is developed and validated against exact solutions, achieving a maximum gap of 1.38%. The results reveal stage-specific economies of scale: adding refineries reduces tanker travel time by up to 75%, while the cost per port declines by 60% as the network expands from 5 to 15 ports.
The thesis offers practical decision-support tools for port authorities, shipping companies, and policymakers navigating the transition to cleaner maritime fuels. It provides a framework for assessing LNG bunkering infrastructure investment and competitive positioning, establishes financial thresholds for fleet fuel choices, and demonstrates how regulatory timing and incentives shape investment decisions. The methodological contributions are transferable to other alternative fuels, including ammonia and methanol, supporting evidence-based decision-making in the transition toward sustainable maritime energy systems.

Ahmed Alsalfiti

• Friday 16 October 2026 at 4:30 PM
• Supervisor: Theo Notteboom
• The defence will take place at the Antwerp Management School, Room 001A, 
  Boogkeers 5, 2000 Antwerp
• Please contact Ahmed (Ahmed.Alsalfiti2@student.uantwerpen.be) to inform him whether you wish to attend the PhD defence before Tuesday 13 October 2026

The impact of Port Service Quality on B2B customer satisfaction: evidence from the Middle East

Ports are critical nodes in international trade, but their performance is experienced differently by the businesses that depend on them. Shipping lines, clearing and forwarding (C&F) agents, transport operators, and the customers of these intermediaries interact with different parts of the port-service system and may therefore evaluate service quality and port performance from very different perspectives. Understanding these differences is particularly relevant in the Gulf region, where ports operate within rapidly developing logistics and trade environments.
This dissertation examines port service quality, customer satisfaction, and perceived port effectiveness through three related studies. The first study investigates how C&F agents evaluate service quality at Shuwaikh Port in Kuwait and finds that resource- and management-related aspects of port service quality are particularly important to their satisfaction. The second shifts the perspective from C&F agents as port users to C&F agents as service providers and examines how their business customers evaluate the services they receive, with tangible service attributes emerging as particularly important. The third broadens the analysis to the port-system level by comparing how shipping lines, C&F agents, and stevedoring and land transport operators evaluate the effectiveness of Shuwaikh Port, Jebel Ali Port in the UAE, and Hamad Port in Qatar. The comparison shows that Shuwaikh Port is evaluated below the two regional benchmark ports across most dimensions of perceived effectiveness, particularly in infrastructure, service quality, and sustainability.
Together, the three studies show that port performance cannot be fully understood from a single stakeholder perspective or through a single service-quality framework. By examining C&F agents both as users of port services and as providers of services to their own customers, and by placing these relationships within a wider multi-stakeholder comparison of port effectiveness, the dissertation provides a layered understanding of how port performance is perceived across the service system. The findings highlight the importance of aligning infrastructure and operational improvements with effective management, stakeholder coordination, and customer-oriented service delivery.

Allan Estandarte

• Friday 23 October 2026 at 10:00 AM
• Supervisors: Lukar Thornton, Wendy Van Lippevelde & Laura Oostenbach
• The defence will take place at the F. De Tassiszaal, Hof van Liere,
  University of Antwerp, Stadscampus,
  Prinsstraat 13, 2000 Antwerp
• Please contact Allan (Allan.Estandarte@uantwerpen.be) to inform him whether you wish to attend the PhD defence before Monday 19 October 2026

Understanding the role of urban housing and kitchen conditions as determinants of food practices

Housing is a recognised social determinant of health and wellbeing, yet the domestic environment, and kitchens in particular, remains largely overlooked as a driver of food practices within public health nutrition, consumer behaviour, and housing studies. Food practices, the everyday routines of planning, purchasing, storing, preparing, cooking, and consuming food, are shaped not only by community food environments but also by the physical conditions of the home in which most of these practices take place. As cities densify and apartment living becoming a key strategy to address population growth, understanding how the domestic space shapes food practices is an urgent concern, particularly in Belgium, where diet-related health risks remain prevalent.
This thesis addresses this gap through four interrelated studies. A narrative review synthesises interdisciplinary evidence on how kitchen and housing aspects shape food practices, identifying eight key design themes. A comparative policy analysis of apartment design guidelines across ten high-income settings, including Belgium, examines whether and how these themes are addressed in existing regulation. A qualitative photo-elicitation study with apartment residents in Antwerp and Brussels explores how kitchen design and housing tenure shape residents' everyday food practices and their capacity to adapt to constraints. Finally, a survey of urban residents in Belgium tests whether kitchen type and perceived kitchen adequacy are associated with home cooking frequency and reliance on out-of-home food.
Together, these studies provide novel evidence that kitchen suitability operates as an independent pathway linking urban housing and kitchen design to diet-related health, extending existing housing and health frameworks and pointing to housing tenure as a further axis of inequality in residents' food practices. The findings carry implications for housing policymakers, urban planners, architects, food system and public health actors seeking to design cities and homes that support, rather than constrain, healthy food practices for growing urban populations.

Luis Rosés Pou

• Wednesday 4 November 2026 at 3:00 PM
• Supervisors: Bart Cambré & Steven Poelmans
  
• The defence will take place at the Cloister of the Grauwzusters, Promotion Room
  University of Antwerp, Stadscampus,
  Lange Sint-Annastraat 7, 2000 Antwerp
  
• If you wish to attend the PhD defence, please inform Luis (Luis.RosesPou@student.uantwerpen.be) by Friday, 30 October 2026
  
  

Unraveling Paradoxes in Team Dynamics

Gwendy Bonte

• Tuesday 10 November 2026 
• Supervisors: Tine Compernolle, Sandra Rousseau & Simon De Jaeger 
• The defence will take place at KU Leuven
• If you wish to attend the PhD defence, please inform Gwendy (Gwendy.Bonte@uantwerpen.be) by Friday, 30 October 2026

Perspectives and experiments on food loss and food waste reduction

Lara Collart

• Friday 13 November 2026 at 4:00 PM
• Supervisors: Nik Stoop & Marijke Verpoorten
• The defence will take place at the Cloister of the Grauwzusters, Promotion Room
  University of Antwerp, Stadscampus,
  Lange Sint-Annastraat 7, 2000 Antwerp
• If you wish to attend the PhD defence, please inform Lara (Lara.Collart@uantwerpen.be) by Monday, 9 November 2026

Conflict, Charcoal, and Clean Cooking: Essays on the Charcoal War Economy and Household Energy Transitions in Eastern DRC

Clemens Friedl

• Monday 23 November 2026 at 12:00 PM
• Supervisors: Wouter Van Bockhaven, Johanna Vanderstraeten & Paul Matthyssens 
• The defence will take place in Building B, room S.A.108, 
  University of Antwerp, Stadscampus,
  Prinsstraat 13, 2000 Antwerp
• Please contact Clemens (Clemens.Friedl2@student.uantwerpen.be) to inform him whether you wish to attend the PhD defence before Wednesday 18 November 2026

The Digital Servitization Prism: A Multi-Faceted Exploration of Decision-Making, Customer Readiness, and Paradoxes

Laura De Boom

• Monday 28 September 2026 at 4:00 PM
• Supervisor: Kim De Meulenaere 

When diversity signals matter: Understanding diversity branding and leadership in organizations

As workforces become increasingly diverse, diversity and inclusion have become more central to contemporary organizations. Specifically, organizations increasingly use diversity branding to signal their commitment to diversity and inclusion, raising important questions about when such diversity signals are effective and what implications they have for prospective and current employees.
This dissertation develops a deeper understanding of diversity branding by examining the conditions under which it helps or hurts organizations in attracting and retaining employees. Drawing on signaling theory as an overarching theoretical lens, it first reviews the emerging literature on diversity branding, synthesizing its conceptual and theoretical foundations, empirical findings, and key gaps in existing research. Building on this review, the dissertation addresses several of these research gaps through three empirical studies, showing how diversity branding and board Black–White diversity jointly shape organizational attractiveness among Black and White job seekers, as well as how diversity branding in job vacancies relates to early turnover depending on the organization’s inclusive climate. Recognizing the important role leaders can play in fostering such an inclusive climate, the dissertation then shifts its focus from diversity branding to inclusive leadership. It examines how age-inclusive leadership, which can be understood as an ongoing diversity signal, supports employees’ work motivation and explores how this relationship varies depending on leader–member age differences. Overall, the dissertation advances our understanding of when diversity signals matter in organizations, showing that the implications of diversity branding depend not only on whether commitments to diversity and inclusion are communicated but also on who receives these signals and their consistency with other diversity signals.

James Hinns 

• Friday 25 September 2026 at 2:00 PM
• Supervisors: David Martens & Sofie Goethals

Human-Centred Approaches for Generating and Evaluating Explainable AI Across Modalities

Since work on this thesis began in October 2022, artificial intelligence has become increasingly prevalent across everyday life, scientific research, and the global economy. ChatGPT was released the following month and, by 2026, had more than one billion weekly users. In 2024, computer scientists were among the recipients of both the Nobel Prize in Physics and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work closely connected to modern artificial intelligence, and in 2025 NVIDIA became the first company to reach a market capitalisation of $5 trillion. This rapid expansion increases the importance of explainable artificial intelligence (XAI), which develops methods for making AI behaviour more understandable to people. My research advances human-centred XAI by developing and evaluating explanation methods that help people understand model behaviour, judge when to rely on AI systems, and improve those systems.

This thesis addresses three challenges in explanation: identifying recurring behaviour across image explanations, communicating complex explanations through natural-language narratives, and understanding the risks created by explanations. The first part develops methods for aggregating local counterfactual and saliency explanations to reveal recurring behaviour in image classifiers without requiring manual inspection of many individual images. The second investigates how complex explanations can be communicated through natural-language narratives. The third examines how explanation systems can be used to mislead users about model behaviour and how this risk can be reduced.

Lars-Michael Wendel

• Thursday 24 September 2026 at 4:30 PM
• Supervisors: Wouter Dewulf & Sascha Albers

Revisiting Strategic Advantage of Airline Groups: Structural Positioning, Vertical Strategy, and Organisational Design

The global airline industry constitutes a core component of the international transportation system, enabling large-scale passenger and cargo mobility while supporting extensive economic activity and employment worldwide. This dissertation revisits the persistent profitability challenge of the global airline industry by shifting the focus from individual carriers to the structural and organisational dynamics of airline groups. It investigates how airline groups can improve their structural positioning by understanding the dynamics at industry interfaces, by pursuing differentiated vertical strategies, and by designing organisational setups and production systems, i.e., Air Operator Certificates, which support strategic manoeuvring under constrained conditions.
The dissertation adopts a multi-level research design that integrates conceptual development and empirical analysis across macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of inquiry. At the macro-level, the dissertation applies the industry architecture perspective to analyse the role allocation, complementarities, and value distribution mechanisms that structure the aviation industry. Furthermore, at the meso-level, it examines airline vertical strategies as governance and boundary choices that shape interactions at key industry interfaces. At the micro-level, the study focuses on organisational design within airline groups, with particular attention to the role of Air Operator Certificates as flight production platforms, and corresponding brand structures.
The dissertation concludes that the persistent profitability challenges of airline groups cannot be understood through firm-level competition or cost-efficiency considerations alone. Instead, they must be analysed through the interaction of industry structure, vertical strategy, and organisational architecture. Airline groups possess limited capacity to alter the overarching industry architecture, but they can influence their structural positioning by shaping interface governance and by designing organisational configurations that enhance strategic discretion.

​

Ines Homburg

• Thursday 24 September 2026 at 4:00 PM
• Supervisors: Sunčica Vujić & Joanna Clifton-Sprigg

Essays on Migration, Policy Shocks, and the Labour Market

Migration has moved to the forefront of economic and political debates across Europe, driven by demographic change, labour shortages, and geopolitical shocks. This thesis examines international migration through four independent empirical studies that exploit distinct quasi-experimental settings. The first chapter studies how the Brexit referendum caused a sharp rise in naturalisations among EU migrants in the UK, who used citizenship to insure against the heightened uncertainty over their residence rights. The second chapter turns to student mobility during the Brexit process, illustrating how the increase in tuition fees caused a large decline in EU student migration to the UK, with economic losses due to forgone positive externalities. The third chapter studies the local electoral responses to the Ukrainian refugee inflow in Poland. Despite no adverse economic effects, the refugee inflow shifted political support towards right-wing and far-right parties. Finally, the fourth chapter explores Belgian naturalisation policies, estimating how naturalisation under loose requirements may worsen labour market outcomes, and illustrating how a restrictive citizenship reform altered the composition of naturalised immigrants. Together, these chapters demonstrates that migration is a dynamic process shaped at every stage by the economic, institutional, and political context.

Elias Maombi Ndatabaye

• Thursday 24 September 2026 at 3:00 PM
• Supervisors: Nik Stoop & Marijke Verpoorten

Beyond the State: Essays on Infrastructure, Livelihoods, and Crisis Response in Eastern DR Congo

This thesis presents four empirical essays examining how households and communities navigate everyday life in Goma, the capital of North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo — one of the world's most persistently fragile urban environments. Its central argument is that in contexts of chronic state weakness, essential services are not simply absent but instead, imperfectly supplied through hybrid arrangements involving households, communities and private actors. Understanding how these arrangements function is the thread that unifies all four essays.
Drawing on an original household panel survey, together with administrative records and qualitative interviews, the essays address two research domains.
The first two essays analyze crisis response to the 2021 Nyiragongo volcanic eruption and show that evacuation unfolded not as a state coordinated process but a fragmented, household-level improvisation. One essay demonstrates that intra-household dynamics shaped by gender roles and the fear of looting led roughly a third of households to split, with women more likely to evacuate and men more likely to stay behind to guard property. The other documents how the eruption's chaotic aftermath — scarce transport, communication failures, and negligible government support — generated rational distrust and eroded future compliance with official warnings, creating behavioral legacies that could undermine disaster response for years to come.
The final two essays turn to urban infrastructure provided by Virunga Energies, a private operator. A study of the staggered installation of over 2,000 street lights finds that lighting substantially reduced nighttime crime, yet not primarily through formal deterrence, but by enabling informal community surveillance and punishment. A final study on socio-economic effects of electricity access found that grid-electrification raised non-agricultural employment, improved asset accumulation, and increased children's study time, with notably heterogeneous effects by gender.
Together, the four essays contribute rigorous empirical evidence on questions that remain poorly understood in fragile and conflict-affected settings, where data are scarce and the operational conditions facing households and communities differ markedly from those assumed in much of the development literature.

Vincent Van Bockstaele

• Wednesday 23 September 2026 at 4:30 PM
• Supervisors: Wouter Dewulf & Sven Buyle

Air cargo market dynamics: unravelling network behaviour and market complexity 

Air cargo is essential to global trade, yet its market dynamics remain difficult to understand because demand, capacity, network structure and routing are only partially observable and often analysed separately. This dissertation develops an integrated empirical framework that connects these dimensions and examines how they interact under changing market conditions and external shocks.
Combining disaggregated demand and supply data, spatio-temporal network analysis and a newly introduced capacity-constrained Air Cargo Routing Model, the research shows that aggregate tonnage, airport throughput and direct capacity provide only partial views of the market. Directional imbalances, transfer dependencies, airline-specific network strategies and indirect routing opportunities fundamentally shape how cargo moves through the system.
This interaction becomes particularly important under disruption. Evidence from the 2018–2019 and 2025 U.S.-China trade-policy episodes shows that trade shocks are associated not only with bilateral volume changes, but also with shifts in sourcing geography, product composition and capacity deployment. Network stress tests further reveal exposure at hubs, airlines and indirect connections beyond directly affected markets, while observed network adaptation can alter these initial vulnerabilities.
Overall, the dissertation shows that air cargo market behaviour and resilience emerge from the interaction of demand geography, deployed capacity, airline strategy, routing optionality and network adaptation.

Jolien Pauwels

• Tuesday 22 September 2026 at 4:30 PM
• Supervisors: Wouter Dewulf & Sven Buyle

The regional airport sustainability trilemma: Type-specific tensions among financial performance, environmental responsibility, and societal value

Regional airports play an important role in the aviation system, yet many face persistent financial vulnerability, growing environmental pressures and continued scrutiny over the societal value that may justify public support. Together, these sometimes competing priorities form a sustainability trilemma, whereby progress in one dimension does not necessarily translate into progress in the others.
This dissertation investigates how this trilemma differs across regional airport types and what these differences imply for airport management and policy. Based on a latent profile cluster analysis of Western European regional airports, four distinct regional airport types are identified: leading, small, challenged low-cost, and specialised cargo regional airports. Building on this typology, the subsequent bottom-up input-output analysis, two-stage data envelopment analysis, and regression analysis further examine how the strengths and vulnerabilities across the three sustainability dimensions differ between these regional airport types. This demonstrated, for instance, that leading regional airports generally occupy a stronger financial position but do not necessarily perform equally strongly across all environmental dimensions; remote small regional airports may provide important connectivity despite persistent financial constraints; challenged low-cost regional airports combine financial vulnerability with relatively high airline dominance and competitive pressure; and the specialised cargo case illustrates how substantial economic contribution can coexist with comparatively weak local-air-quality efficiency.
In a final step, the dissertation explores airport charging as one potential managerial response. More specifically, it examines passenger occupancy as an additional utilisation-sensitive dimension within movement-based charges at uncongested regional airports with heterogeneous traffic.
Overall, the dissertation demonstrates that regional airport sustainability is type- and context-dependent. It therefore challenges one-size-fits-all approaches and supports differentiated managerial and policy responses to the specific financial, environmental, and societal tensions associated with different regional airport types and contexts.

Muna Khoury

• Monday 21 September 2026 at 10:00 AM
• Supervisors: ​Ans De Vos & Sofie Jacobs

The Paradox of Insecurity: Job Threats, Contextual Vulnerability, and Employee Behavior in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

What happens to the way people work when the threat of losing their job is not temporary, but becomes a persistent feature of working life? This dissertation examines job insecurity in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, a setting in which structural conditions can make employment insecurity prolonged and difficult to escape. Drawing on evidence from employees in the Palestinian private sector, the three studies combine time-lagged and longitudinal data with a new conceptual framework. Together, they address a central question: How does job insecurity shape employee behavior when insecurity is persistent and structurally embedded, rather than temporary and episodic?
In addressing this question, the dissertation reveals a paradox. When the threat of job loss is persistent, employees’ ethical conduct appears to depend more on the strength of their relational bond with the organization than on cognitive self-regulation. At the same time, their initiative and proactivity may gradually erode, even when resources that are expected to protect against such effects are available.
Together, these patterns lead the dissertation to reconceptualize job insecurity through a framework termed Contextual Employment Vulnerability. This framework situates employees’ perceptions of insecurity within the structural conditions of the labor market that generate vulnerability and and the organizational practices through which these conditions are experienced at work. In doing so, the research helps explain why the effects of job insecurity depend so much on context, and what this may mean for understanding and supporting employee behavior in fragile and conflict-affected economies.

Jorge León Y Vélez Avelar

• Monday 14 September 2026 at 3:30 PM
• Supervisors: Luc Van Liedekerke & Wayne Visser

Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility in Mexico: Institutional Voices, Corporate Narratives, and Public Perceptions

This doctoral dissertation examines how Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is communicated and perceived in an emerging economy, using Mexico as its empirical context. The research explores CSR communication from a multilevel perspective, considering companies, institutional intermediaries, communication channels, and stakeholders.
The dissertation proposes the CSR Communication Ecosystem as an integrative framework and introduces Communicative Congruence as a central concept for understanding the alignment between what organizations communicate about their social responsibility and what stakeholders perceive.
Based on four complementary empirical studies examining business chambers, corporate CSR and sustainability reports, CSR communication on X, and consumer perceptions, the research shows that effective CSR communication depends not simply on message consistency, but on the interaction between institutional context, communication strategies, channels, and stakeholder perceptions. The findings contribute to the broader discussion on CSR communication while highlighting the particular challenges and opportunities present in emerging economies.

Nina Marien

• Monday 7 September 2026 at 2:00 PM
• Supervisors: Marc Deloof & Ine Paeleman

Essays on entrepreneurial finance: internationalization and corporate governance

Entrepreneurial firms drive innovation, employment, and economic growth, yet their ambitions usually exceed their internal resources. They need capital to develop products, build an organization, and expand abroad long before they generate cash flows to fund these activities themselves. For these firms, raising capital is never just about money: each source of finance carries a different mix of ownership, incentives, expertise, and control rights.

This dissertation examines how the financing of entrepreneurial firms shapes two outcomes central to their development: internationalization and corporate governance. It brings together three complementary studies. The first study is a systematic review of 112 articles published over three decades, connecting the literatures on entrepreneurial finance and international entrepreneurship. The second study compares 602 UK firms that raised equity through crowdfunding with 602 comparable firms that did not, examining how this financing event affects board size. The third study follows 101,202 Italian new ventures for up to five years after incorporation to establish when boards form and how having a board relates to firm growth and survival.

The first study shows that research has concentrated on venture capital and exporting, leaving other financing sources and forms of foreign expansion largely unexplored. The second study finds that equity crowdfunding is followed by a lasting increase in board size. Unlike venture capital or private equity investors, equity crowdfunding investors individually hold stakes that are too small to make monitoring worthwhile and are collectively too dispersed to do so effectively. Yet firms still expand their boards. This increase persists when the comparison is limited to firms that raised new capital by other means, indicating that it cannot be explained by the capital injection alone. The effect is strongest in firms without venture capital or private equity investors, whose direct monitoring can otherwise substitute for additional directors. In the third study, boards in Italian new ventures emerge as firms grow larger, older, and more widely owned, but also shortly before firms cease operations. Boards are thus not simply mechanisms intended to improve performance; they are also responses to firms’ existing circumstances. The familiar association between boards and outcomes partly reflects which firms adopt them.

Financing decisions are, in this sense, also decisions about who governs the firm and when. By linking entrepreneurial finance to internationalization and board formation, this dissertation offers a more integrated understanding of how young firms are financed and governed, with implications for researchers, entrepreneurs, investors, crowdfunding platforms, and policymakers.

Marie Cryns

• Thursday 3 September 2026 at 4:30 PM
• Supervisors: Thierry Vanelslander & Edwin van Hassel

Digital Innovation in Peripheral Inland Waterway Transport: Ecosystems, Adoption, and The Role of Digital Twins

Inland waterway transport (IWT) is recognised as one of the most sustainable modes of freight transport and has the potential to contribute to a more efficient and resilient European transport system. Despite this potential, many European IWT regions remain underdeveloped and the adoption of digital innovations has been relatively limited. 

This dissertation examines how peripheral inland waterway transport ecosystems shape the development, adoption, and impact of digital innovation, with a focus on Digital Twins (DTs). Using an ecosystem perspective, the research combines industry analysis, stakeholder mapping, technology assessment, an empirical study of stakeholder perceptions, and the development of a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) framework for evaluating the impact of DTs. The findings show that digital innovation in IWT depends on more than technological capabilities alone. Successful development and implementation require alignment between infrastructure, governance, stakeholder coordination, digital readiness, and market conditions. While DTs are generally perceived as promising technologies, their adoption remains constrained by broader ecosystem conditions. The proposed KPI framework provides a structured approach for evaluating their impact across operational, environmental, economic, governance, and digital dimensions. 

By integrating ecosystem theory with technology adoption and impact assessment, this dissertation contributes to a better understanding of digital transformation in IWT and provides valuable insights for researchers, policymakers, and industry stakeholders working towards a more competitive, resilient, and sustainable European IWT sector.

Juan Manuel Pulido Guzmán

• Monday 24 August 2026 at 5:00 PM
• Supervisors: Thierry Vanelslander, Valentin Carlan & Ivan Cardenas Barbosa

Inland Waterway Transport Visibility: An enabler for Synchromodal Transport in Europe

European inland waterway transport is often praised for its competitive costs, greater capacity, and smaller environmental footprint compared to road or rail, yet its share of freight has continued to decline over the past decade. Part of the problem from an operational perspective lies in infrastructure constraints, such as bridge clearances, water level fluctuations that force vessels to reduce their loads and increase costs, and disruptive waterway events, such as obstructions or lock malfunctions, that are reported but rarely structured into usable operational information. An equally important barrier is harder to pin down: the lack of impact evaluation and real-time visibility into these conditions, shared among shippers, logistics service providers, and terminals. Without this visibility, stakeholders cannot detect problems early enough to mitigate or react to transport disruptions, and shifting cargo to another mode in real time when conditions deteriorate, the core idea behind synchromodal transport, becomes much harder to achieve.

This thesis proposes visibility as the enabler of synchromodality, given how heavily this concept relies on timely access to information, and delivers it through four connected contributions. First, a federated data space lets transport stakeholders exchange operational information while keeping control and ownership over their data. Second, a set of methods extracts and structures waterway events and vessel-tracking data into predictive features. Third, the information exchanged through the data space is operationalized through machine learning models for travel-time and ETA estimation and transport simulation services, showing that this visibility allows operators to detect delays earlier and decide when to dynamically transship cargo to another mode, enabling synchromodal transport in practice. Finally, business model principles help identify how value can be created and shared among data space participants, laying the groundwork for a commercially sustainable data space. Tested on the Rhine-Alpine-Danube corridors, some of Europe's busiest waterways, this dissertation shows how visibility can turn inland barging into a more competitive and flexible part of Europe's transport system.

Inés Guillemyn​

• Wednesday 8 July 2026 at 4:00 PM 
• Supervisors: Sunčica Vujić & Nick Deschacht

Gender pension gap in Europe: Determinants and perspectives for the future

Across Europe, pension systems are undergoing substantial reform in response to population ageing, and the importance of occupational pensions is increasing. These reforms may affect pension adequacy, and may disproportionately disadvantage women, as access to occupational pensions depends on participation in paid employment and generally lacks the redistributive mechanisms found in public pension schemes.
This PhD thesis examines the gender gap in occupational pension income in Europe, focusing on inequalities in access to occupational pension plans as well as differences in contributions and accumulated pension savings. The first chapter provides a cross-country overview of the gender gap in occupational pensions among current retirees, and identifies its main determinants. The second chapter examines individuals’ willingness to pay for pension benefits relative to wages. The final chapter extends the existing literature on the child penalty in earnings, and examines the long-term effects of becoming a parent on occupational pension savings and wealth. Overall, this thesis contributes to a better understanding of gender inequality in retirement income, within the context of current pension reforms.

Jade Vetters ​

• Wednesday 1 July 2026 at 4:00 PM 
• Supervisors: Steven Van Passel & Gwenny Thomassen 
• The defence will take place at the Cloister of the Grauwzusters, Promotion Room
  University of Antwerp, Stadscampus,
  Lange Sint-Annastraat 7, 2000 Antwerp
• Please send an email to Jade (jade.vetters@uantwerpen.be) to inform her whether you wish to attend the PhD defence before Wednesday 24 June 2026

Between Salt and Steel: Multi-Actor Techno-Economics of Decommissioning Offshore Wind Energy Projects

As Europe’s first offshore wind farms approach the end of their operational life, decommissioning is no longer a distant horizon. What happens after turbines stop turning will shape not only project costs, but also the sector’s circular ambitions and long-term responsibility at sea.
This dissertation examines offshore wind decommissioning as a multi-actor techno-economic challenge. Through literature review, stakeholder interviews, techno-economic assessment, and spatial-operational analysis, it shows that decommissioning is not one final offshore task, but a chain of connected decisions across dismantling, ports, recycling, and regulation. The research maps a dense and interconnected challenge landscape, develops the Multi-Actor Techno-Economic Assessment framework, MATEA, and applies it to reveal how offshore wind farm operators, marine contractors, and recycling companies are affected differently by the same decommissioning choices.
The findings show that economic feasibility cannot be reduced to a single “best” scenario. Offshore campaign duration dominates costs and carries consequences downstream, shaping port occupation and recycling viability. At the same time, spatial constraints at ports turn circular ambitions into concrete feasibility questions. Together, the dissertation shows that responsible decommissioning requires alignment across actors, time, space, and policy. Between salt and steel, decommissioning becomes not an ending, but a test of coordinated responsibility.

Tijmen van Kempen​

• Friday 12 June 2026 at 5:00 PM 
• Supervisor: Sven Damen

Essays on Policies to Improve Energy Efficiency in Housing Markets

Residential buildings account for around 26% of final energy use in the European Union. Therefore, improving the energy efficiency of the existing housing stock is therefore central to European climate policy. Yet the housing-market instruments meant to encourage it remain only partially understood. This dissertation studies three sequential reforms of Flemish housing energy policy and asks, in each case, whether the policy did what it was designed to do.

The first chapter examines mandatory energy performance certificates (EPCs), exploiting the 2008 introduction of a continuous EPC score and the 2019 addition of categorical labels. The score itself left the pricing of energy efficiency largely unchanged, whereas the more salient labels did alter how it was capitalised into prices — indicating that the design of disclosure, not its mere existence, drives its effect. The second chapter turns to the 2023 renovation obligation, which requires buyers of the least efficient homes to upgrade them within five years. A difference-in-differences analysis finds only a modest price discount of around 2% for affected dwellings, largely because many buyers were already renovating these homes and because expected renovation costs were already reflected in prices. The third chapter asks whether labels change behaviour rather than only prices. Drawing on metered energy consumption and the same 2019 reform, it shows that labels were capitalised into prices and shifted the distribution of reported scores, but finds no robust evidence that they reduced actual energy use or improved the matching of households to dwellings.

Joseph Puthenpurackal Chakko

• Thursday 11 June 2026 at 2:00 PM
• Supervisors: Steven De Haes & Tim Huygh

An Agile Portfolio Framework to Govern Enterprise IT Investments

Enterprise IS functions face intensifying pressure to govern portfolios of IT investments with both strategic discipline and adaptive responsiveness, a challenge that existing portfolio management frameworks are ill-equipped to resolve. This research addresses that gap through seven interconnected studies in a coherent Design Science Research trajectory to produce a design theory for IT portfolio agility, comprising nine principles that specify what agile portfolios look like and how to achieve them. The research also identifies two generative mechanisms – systemic cohesion and systemic adaptation – that foster sustained agility within IS portfolios as they adapt to dynamic changes in their strategic and operational environments.
In addition, the design theory is operationalized as a four-stage IS Portfolio Agility Maturity Model (IS-PfAM2) that helps organizations assess their current maturity stage and chart a realistic development path. A key finding is that funding flexibility acts as a gatekeeper, constraining maturity progression regardless of strengths elsewhere in the portfolio. Together, the design theory, the maturity model, and a flow-integrated improvement framework offer practitioners empirically grounded tools for diagnosing portfolio capability and guiding contextually appropriate development, while contributing to theory by repositioning portfolio agility from a static capability accumulation problem to one of continuous, constraint-aware reconfiguration.

Juha-Pekka Jäpölä​

• Wednesday 03 June 2026 at 2:00 PM 
• Supervisors: Steven Van Passel & Sophie Van Schoubroeck

The tip of the iceberg : Future of humanitarian crises under climate change and a funding model to support them

In a world where climate change is accelerating humanitarian crises, understanding the future economic magnitude of these crises is critical. Traditional economic models, which often focus on market-based impacts, fail to capture the compounding, non-market risks of climate-humanitarian crises. This gap leaves policymakers and humanitarian actors without the tools they need to allocate resources effectively in a rapidly changing world marked with cuts to multilateral development budgets, and increased state-level hostilities. Humanitarian crises are the tip of iceberg for climate change adaptation, first indicators of possibly irreversible societal damage in fragile countries before the larger mass.
The thesis addresses this shortcoming by developing a climate-informed humanitarian funding model that bridges scientific projections with actionable policy insights. It culminates in machine learning-based simulations of future humanitarian needs under the business-as-usual SSP2-RCP4.5 climate scenario with warming limited to 3°C by 2100—a first time to be performed at this level and scale. Humanitarian needs rise to a baseline of 410 million people and USD 64 billion annually by 2050 worldwide, increases of 28% and 30% respectively compared to 2024 (320 million people and USD 49 billion). A medium optimistic simulation holds needs near the current, while a medium pessimistic simulation leads to 614 million people and USD 96 billion by 2050, increases of 92% and 96% respectively. The results show an opportunity cost, as resources for crisis response displace funding for adaptation and mitigation.
Three key innovations are introduced: (1) Actionable and policy-proof metrics that use people in need and funding requirements as proxies for climate damage; (2) use of machine learning—namely Gaussian Process Regression (GPR)—and stochastic methods as an econometric tool in a data sparse and asymmetric environment, and (3) behavioural insights from the Delphi panel that ground the modelling parameters and choices. Policy recommendations include more bundled and legally coupled funding instruments in the humanitarian-development-peace nexus (e.g., climate resilience investment following humanitarian response) to achieve an integrated approach.

Stijn Michielsen​

• Wednesday 20 May 2026 at 4:30 PM 
• Supervisors: Wouter Dewulf  & Roel Gevaers

Cross-Border E-Commerce Logistics: Strategic Configuration, Observability, and Control

This dissertation examines how cross-border e-commerce logistics is strategically organised, measured, and governed. It analyses differences in retailer strategies, develops a more logistics-based approach to measuring cross-border e-commerce, and studies how control in the postal-parcel ecosystem is shifting across posts, integrators, and e-commerce platforms. In doing so, it offers a multi-level perspective on one of the most important transformations in today’s logistics landscape.

Felipe Bedoya Maya​

• Wednesday 13 May 2026 at 4:30 PM 
• Supervisors: Edwin van Hassel & Joris Beckers

Inland waterway transport resilience to disruptions: Evidence from the Rhine Alpine Corridor

Inland waterway transport (IWT) holds significant potential for sustainable freight movement by reducing external costs such as emissions, congestion, and accidents. In Europe, the Rhine–Alpine Corridor (RALP) is a critical network, linking multiple countries and handling substantial cargo volumes. Yet, despite policy targets to expand IWT’s share in long-distance freight, usage has declined in recent years, driven by a range of disruptions. These include extreme weather events causing critical low water levels, operational inefficiencies, strikes, economic crises, and global shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic. 

While existing research underscores the importance of spatial network structure for resilience, most IWT studies address disruptions in isolation, often overlooking the interdependence among spatial, connectivity, and temporal dynamics. Moreover, although shipping research has shown that transport networks can maintain functionality through evidence-based response strategies, comparable evidence in the European inland context remains scarce. 

This doctoral thesis addresses these gaps by disentangling the temporal, spatial, and connectivity dynamics of disruptive impacts on container transport via inland waterways in the RALP. Employing spatial and time-series econometrics, network analysis, and transport simulation, it quantifies how shocks affect network performance and formulates response strategies, evaluating their feasibility and potential impact. The findings contribute to both academic and policy debates by offering insights to reinforce the role of IWT in building a greener and more resilient European freight transport network

Brian Fowler​

• Wednesday 29 April 2026 at 11:30 AM
• Supervisors: Steven Van Passel  & Sebastien Lizin 

Behavioral Insights into Distributed Energy Flexibility: Evidence from Discrete Choice Experiments

As power systems integrate increasing shares of renewable energy and electrification accelerates, distributed energy flexibility is becoming essential for maintaining grid reliability and limiting infrastructure costs. Technologies such as flexible plug-in electric vehicle charging and residential solar–battery systems enable households to shift electricity use, store energy, and supply electricity to the grid during periods of high demand. However, realizing these benefits depends on households’ willingness to adopt these technologies and participate in flexibility programs. This thesis examines how behavioral factors shape these decisions using three discrete choice experiments designed to capture investment, participation, and delegation choices in realistic policy contexts. The first study estimates implicit discount rates for flexibility-capable PEV chargers, revealing that households heavily discount future electricity-bill savings relative to upfront costs. The second study examines participation in managed smart charging and evaluates how service-design features—such as safeguards related to control, range, and data privacy—affect willingness to delegate charging decisions. The third study analyzes decisions to sell energy from residential solar–battery systems under uncertainty, comparing incentives presented in gain and loss domains. Overall, the findings show that participation depends not only on financial incentives, but also on perceived risks and behavioral responses to uncertainty. These results suggest that reducing perceived risks, offering upfront incentives, and carefully structuring flexibility programs may be more effective than relying solely on long-term compensation.

Charis Christodoulou Raftis​

• Thursday 19 March 2026 at 5:15 PM 
• Supervisors: Edwin van Hassel  & Thierry Vanelslander

Smart and Sustainable Ports and Inland Waterways - The Role of Digitalization, Human Capital Development, Policy Frameworks and Energy Transition

Ports and inland waterways are critical to decarbonizing transport, yet progress toward smart and sustainable waterborne logistics remains uneven. Smart technologies such as AI, IoT and alternative fuels are advancing rapidly, but they do not deliver sustainability on their own: effective transition also depends on workforce readiness and policy mechanisms that can steer investment and measure impact.
This dissertation develops an integrated framework to explain how four enablers, digitalization, human capital development, policy modelling, and the energy transition, must evolve together across the waterborne logistics chain, from deep-sea ports to inland corridors, to enable smart and sustainable outcomes. It is structured around four research pillars: (1) smart ports, examining how AI and IoT contribute to sustainability practices in ports; (2) smart training, through the design and evaluation of a serious game for maritime and inland navigation education; (3) a policy-support tool, developing a policy-sensitive Digital Shadow for Europe’s inland waterway transport system to simulate energy pathways, pricing scenarios, emissions and modal share impacts up to 2050; and (4) a systematic review of alternative fuels for inland vessels supporting the sector’s energy transition.
Together, the findings provide practical guidance for industry stakeholders and policymakers on how smart technologies, skills development, policy design, and propulsion pathways can jointly support a smarter and more sustainable transition in European waterborne logistics.

Claus Nottbrock

• Thursday 12 March 2026 at 5:00 PM
• Supervisors: Steven De Haes & Amy Van Looy

A Novel Maturity Model for Managing Digital Industry 4.0 Innovations through Interorganizational Value Chains

This dissertation investigates how manufacturing organizations can improve their business process performance by extending the digital Industry 4.0 (I4.0) innovation perspective from single organizations to entire interorganizational value chains (IVCs). Although significant investment has been made, many organizations still struggle to scale their digital I4.0 initiatives. Maturity models (MMs) are commonly used to assess capabilities, identify areas for development, and set roadmaps for progress, guiding organizations to improve their business process performance.
The central researdch problem addressed is that manufacturers cannot fully optimize business processes across the IVC to achieve the full benefits of digital I4.0 innovations. The dissertation’s three studies respond to: (1) insufficient understanding of BPM, SCM, and DI domains from an interorganizational perspective, (2) limited empirical knowledge of required digital I4.0 capabilities in IVCs, and (3) underuse of theoretical foundations in maturity model development.
To fill these gaps, the research develops and evaluates the Digital Interorganizational Value Chain Maturity Model (DIOVC MM). The DIOVC MM aims to enable organizations in jointly developing capabilities that improve their business process performance to the full potential out of digital innovation.
The three studies are integrated within the overall design science research approach to develop a novel artefact: (1) defining interorganizational capabilities and developing a conceptual DIOVC framework through a comprehensive literature review, (2) refining and validating the DIOVC capability framework via a Delphi study with international experts, and (3) introducing and validating four maturity levels that complement the DIOVC maturity model, which we evaluated in a single case study.
Together, these studies make significant theoretical and practical contributions by advancing understanding of interorganizational digital transformation and offering a structured approach for organizations to coordinate digital I4.0 innovation efforts in IVCs. The descriptive DIOVC MM provides a robust framework to evaluate maturity levels, guide capability development, and enhance collaborative performance among interorganizational entities.

Jeffrey Willems​

• Monday 23 February 2026 at 4:30 PM 
• Supervisors: Edwin van Hassel & Thierry Vanelslander

Assessing the Impact and Transferability of Innovation Portfolios for Greener Ports

Ports are critical nodes in global supply chains and significant sources of transport-related greenhouse gas emissions. Within the ambitions of the European Green Deal, achieving meaningful emission reductions requires not only technological innovation but also robust methods to assess environmental impact and determine whether solutions can be transferred across diverse port contexts. Although numerous innovation initiatives are being piloted in ports, the lack of standardized models for estimating avoided emissions has created a persistent knowledge gap. This research addresses that gap through the development of the Innovation Initiative Assessment Model (IIAM), complemented by a transferability dashboard, together providing an integrated framework to evaluate both the emission reduction potential of innovation portfolios and their adaptability across European ports.
The study is motivated by the dual need to benchmark innovation-driven emission reductions and to assess the systemic readiness of ports to adopt new solutions. Beyond quantifying direct environmental benefits, effective decarbonization requires insight into infrastructural, regulatory, and operational conditions that shape implementation feasibility. The transferability dashboard was therefore designed to map key Port Related Conditions (PRCs), enabling assessment of whether innovation portfolios developed in one port can be replicated or scaled in others. Combined, the IIAM and dashboard move beyond isolated case studies toward a holistic, comparative approach to port decarbonization.
The central objective was to design and apply the IIAM to evaluate the carbon reduction impact of an innovation portfolio implemented at the Port of Antwerp-Bruges and to assess its transferability to Barcelona, Constanța, and Venlo. Methodologically, the research combined desk research, expert consultations, and applied modeling. Indicators were developed iteratively to ensure theoretical robustness and practical feasibility, allowing the model to capture both direct emission reductions and broader external costs. Expert input also informed the identification and scoring of PRCs used in the transferability assessment.
Results indicate that the Antwerp-Bruges portfolio achieved an average modeled reduction of 34% in transport-related emissions at the demonstration scale, with substantial variation across initiatives. Technologies such as energy generation from water currents, modular energy containers, smart battery storage, green straddle carriers, and automated container shuttles performed strongly, while others underperformed due to operational or infrastructural constraints. When scaled up, the portfolio delivered a maximum modeled reduction of 120,340 tons of CO₂, equivalent to 9.48% of transport-related emissions, with inland shipping offering the highest reduction potential.
The transferability analysis revealed significant variation in readiness across ports, underscoring that technological effectiveness is highly context-dependent. Overall, the study demonstrates that innovation portfolios can contribute meaningfully to port decarbonization, but their impact depends on strategic prioritization and alignment with local systemic conditions.

Joeri Meeûs

• Wednesday 18 February 2026 at 4:30 PM
• Supervisors: Wouter Dewulf & Rosario Macario
  

Breaking silos in Aviation: The IMS Cube approach to Integrated Management Systems

Airlines have implemented over the years various management systems to address different risks. However, these have been implemented in a siloed approach and therefore overlook the effects of potential impact of different risks from one management system to another. This results in a fragmented risk management landscape and overlook the complexity of certain risks holistically. As the aviation industry is facing increasingly complex risks, limited models are available to overcome this.
This dissertation examines the current landscape of management systems within airlines and their level of interoperability. To address identified gaps, it introduces the Integrated Management System Cube (IMS Cube), a visual and process-oriented structure that promotes interoperability amongst various systems. The IMS Cube establish a unique language and process throughout all management systems to ensure they contribute to an integrated approach on risk management.
The IMS Cube provides a practical, visual framework that reveals interactions and dependencies between management systems that would otherwise remain hidden, ensuring that risks are no longer obscured within individual systems but become visible through its unified structure and shared processes. This research advances the literature by delivering empirical evidence on management system interoperability in aviation, presenting a comprehensive overview of the systems airlines employ, and introducing a validated, practice-oriented integration model. The findings demonstrate that an integrated approach is both achievable and advantageous, enabling airlines to understand, manage, and mitigate risks more coherently and without internal contradictions across various management systems.

Gabriela Nobre Dias

• Monday 9 February 2026 at 2:00 PM
• Supervisors: Kavita Hamza, Ingrid Moons & Annouk Lievens

Collaboration and communication for sustainability-based value: a multi-level analysis of multi-stakeholder networks in the Amazon forest

The Amazon forest plays a central role in climate regulation, biodiversity preservation, and the livelihoods of millions of people, particularly traditional and local communities. At the same time, growing extractive pressures, global market demands, and persistent social inequalities make sustainability in the region a deeply contested challenge, often characterized as a wicked problem with no single or definitive solution.
In this context, multi-stakeholder networks involving communities, NGOs, companies, and public institutions have emerged as promising mechanisms to foster sustainability-based value. However, existing evidence remains fragmented regarding how such value is created, undermined, and effectively communicated across interconnected actors and markets, limiting both theoretical integration and practical guidance.
Against this backdrop, this dissertation examines sustainability-based value in the Amazon across three ecosystem analytical levels, focusing on processes of co-creation, co-destruction, and consumer adoption. Using a multi-method research design that combines qualitative inquiry, mixed methods, and survey-based experiments, the study analyzes how collaboration dynamics, expectation misalignments, and communication strategies shape sustainability outcomes. The findings offer theoretical contributions and practical insights for building more inclusive and durable sustainability pathways in the Amazon.

Bianca Sălăgean

• Friday 6 February 2026 at 4:30 PM 
• Supervisors: Edwin van Hassel  & Lisa-Maria Putz-Egger 
  

Economic evaluation of removing nautical bottlenecks on inland waterways

The thesis entitled "Economic evaluation of removing nautical bottlenecks on inland waterways" develops a comprehensive cost–benefit analysis (CBA) framework to evaluate the socio-economic impacts of rehabilitating nautical bottlenecks on inland waterways, with a particular focus on the Danube. The study addresses the lack of standardized evaluation tools capable of capturing the cumulative and interdependent effects of infrastructure improvements along river corridors. Drawing on a modular, model-based approach, the research identifies and operationalizes key performance indicators (KPIs) such as transport costs, duration, fuel consumption, and vessel draft. The model quantifies the economic and social benefits of removing bottlenecks under different navigational scenarios and incorporates a greedy algorithm to prioritize investment projects according to their aggregated benefits.
Results from the case study on the Middle and Lower Danube show that isolated rehabilitation measures generate only limited benefits, while coordinated interventions across neighboring bottlenecks lead to disproportionately high socio-economic gains. These findings highlight the importance of integrated, corridor-wide planning strategies in enhancing the competitiveness and sustainability of inland waterway transport. The developed framework provides a transparent and transferable basis for policy-making and investment appraisal in the inland navigation sector, advancing both scientific methodology and practical decision-making in sustainable transport infrastructure.