Juan Manuel Pulido Guzmán

• Monday 24 August 2026 at 5:00 PM
• Supervisors: Thierry Vanelslander, Valentin Carlan & Ivan Cardenas Barbosa
• The defence will take place at the Cloister of the Grauwzusters, Promotion Room
  University of Antwerp, Stadscampus,
  Lange Sint-Annastraat 7, 2000 Antwerp
• Please contact Juan (Juan.Pulido@uantwerpen.be) to inform him whether you wish to attend the PhD defence before Wednesday 19 August 2026

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.

Marie Cryns

• Thursday 3 September 2026 at 4:30 PM
• Supervisors: Thierry Vanelslander & Edwin van Hassel
• The defence will take place at the UCSIA, 
  Koningstraat 2, 2000 Antwerp
• Please contact Marie (marie.cryns@uantwerpen.be) to inform her whether you wish to attend the PhD defence before Monday 31 August 2026

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.

Nina Marien

• Monday 7 September 2026 at 2:00 PM
• Supervisors: Marc Deloof & Ine Paeleman
• The defence will take place at the F. De Tassiszaal, Hof van Liere,
  University of Antwerp, Stadscampus,
  Prinsstraat 13, 2000 Antwerp
• Please contact Nina (Nina.Marien@uantwerpen.be) to inform her whether you wish to attend the PhD defence before Wednesday 2 September 2026

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.

Jolien Pauwels

• Tuesday 22 September 2026 at 4:30 PM
• Supervisors: Wouter Dewulf & Sven Buyle
• The defence will take place at the Cloister of the Grauwzusters, Promotion Room,
  University of Antwerp, Stadscampus,
  Lange Sint-Annastraat 7, 2000 Antwerp
• Please contact Jolien (Jolien.Pauwels@uantwerpen.be) to inform her whether you wish to attend the PhD defence before Wednesday 16 September 2026

Towards sustainable regional airports: Balancing financial performance, environmental responsibility and socio-economic value

Vincent Van Bockstaele

• Wednesday 23 September 2026 at 4:30 PM
• Supervisors: Wouter Dewulf & Sven Buyle
• The defence will take place at the Cloister of the Grauwzusters, Promotion Room,
  University of Antwerp, Stadscampus,
  Lange Sint-Annastraat 7, 2000 Antwerp
• Please contact Vincent (Vincent.VanBockstaele@uantwerpen.be) to inform him whether you wish to attend the PhD defence before Thursday 17 September 2026

Air cargo market dynamics: unravelling network behaviour and market complexity 

Ines Homburg

• Thursday 24 September 2026 at 4:00 PM
• Supervisors: Sunčica Vujić & Joanna Clifton-Sprigg
• The defence will take place in Room S.C.001, Building C,
  University of Antwerp, Stadscampus,
  Prinsstraat 13, 2000 Antwerp
• Please send an email to Ines (Ines.Homburg@uantwerpen.be) to inform her whether you wish to attend the PhD defence before Tuesday 22 September 2026

Essays on Migration, Policy Shocks, and the Labour Market

Lars-Michael Wendel

• Thursday 24 September 2026 at 4:30 PM
• Supervisors: Wouter Dewulf & Sascha Albers
• The defence will take place at the Antwerp Management School, Room 005, 
  Boogkeers 5, 2000 Antwerp
• Please contact Lars-Michael (lars-michael.wendel@student.uantwerpen.be) to inform him whether you wish to attend the PhD defence before Monday 21 September 2026

Winning the race for customer ownership: Strategies and implications of commercial value chain recomposition in the airline industry ​

James Hinns 

• Friday 25 September 2026 at 2:00 PM
• Supervisors: David Martens & Sofie Goethals
• The defence will take place at the Cloister of the Grauwzusters, Promotion Room
  University of Antwerp, Stadscampus,
  Lange Sint-Annastraat 7, 2000 Antwerp
• Please contact James (James.Hinns@uantwerpen.be) to inform him whether you wish to attend the PhD defence before Tuesday 22 September 2026

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

Laura De Boom

• Monday 28 September 2026 at 4:00 PM
• Supervisor: Kim De Meulenaere 
• The defence will take place at the F. De Tassiszaal, Hof van Liere,
  University of Antwerp, Stadscampus,
  Prinsstraat 13, 2000 Antwerp
• Please contact Laura (Laura.DeBoom@uantwerpen.be) to inform her whether you wish to attend the PhD defence before Wednesday 23 September 2026

Unravelling the effects of Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Branding: Investigating its effect on diversity attraction and retention

Wouter Schmidt 

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

Decarbonizing European Container terminals: assessing the economic feasibility of green container handling equipment

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

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.