Prof. dr. Caroline Nevejan is a researcher and designer who has been involved with the emerging network society and digital culture since the 1980s. Nevejan is a regular presenter at national and international fora. She is an advisor to national and European policy makers.

Caroline Nevejan is professor by special appointment with the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam. Her research is focused on Designing Urban Experience and she supervises 5 PhD candidates in this context (see tab underneath).

As of 2017 Caroline Nevejan has been appointed Chief Science Officer of the city of Amsterdam. The Chief Science Officer orchestrates research between the municipality of Amsterdam and the different scientific, academic and artistic universities in the city. With a small team she makes sure that civil servants and researchers can find each other and invent different new ways of working together. 

NWO Grant: Designing rhythms for social resilience - by Pinar Sefkatli

The aim of the research is to develop a methodology for analysing rhythms in the built environment, its social life and datasets, with case studies in Amsterdam Zuidoost. Such methodology will enable the fusion of increasingly diverse sources of urban information, and will be an instrument that identifies the different spatial and temporal dynamics in a neighbourhood and in urban datasets. Daily schedules of the residents, weekly neighbourhood activities, holidays, public transportation schedules are only few examples of the dynamic patterns that create a potential for this analysis.

Multispecies urbanism - by Debra Solomon

The research investigates a framework and praxis prioritising citizen-expert collaboration with more-than-humans in the planning, design, implementation and maintenance of public space urban greens. It considers how urban ecosystems might gain agency by becoming robust, present, and productive, thus acquiring something of a ‘seat at the design table’ during the production of policy and of urban design. Examining the processes of the spatial production of metropolitan natures in Amsterdam through the lenses of two different literatures, namely urban political ecology (UPE) and Right to the City, the research identifies uneven power relationships that limit access to (and of) high-quality greens and public spaces, the templates by which spatial planning produces conservation zones, peri-urban Nature and peripheral urban greens, which are designed, implemented and enrolled in urban life.

Design for knowledge production in communities of practice - by Ino Paap

The many people connected via digital networks and living in cities create a new potential for problem solving capabilities and well-being for society. A successful inclusion of the massive volumes of embodied experiences of the many people can contribute to the problemsolving capabilities of mankind at large. This research, which is about design for experience, investigates pre-requisites, design and architectural principles for knowledge production in digital networks. Knowledge emerges when people contribute on digital platforms. This research investigates co-creation of knowledge in digital contexts between different ‘communities of practice’ in artistic and design research, within the field of culture and retail. It investigates the integration of knowledge in the field of design, co-creation, narrative structures and curation in different cultural and commercial contexts.

Information as Actor - by Juan Carlos Goilo

This research investigates how information functions as an actor in the making process of two monitors for circular economy, one in the city of Amsterdam and the other on the Island of Curaçao. Faced with the need to act towards sustainable futures, a variety of monitors are being developed in many places around the world.

By conducting a comparative case study, the research aims to understand how information organizers, such as the monitors, acquire agency and interact within local and global dynamics. It explores how these monitors facilitate transitions to what the respective local economies perceive to be a sustainable future.  The city of Amsterdam and the island of Curaçao both use the doughnut economy model, as developed by Kate Raworth, for the implementation of circular economy and to monitor the progress of their policies. Information has been pivotal to policymaking for centuries. It plays a significant role in the human domination of the world. Nowadays data, including real time data, are regularly used as feedback loops for policymaking. The scale and speed of information technology offer unprecedented possibilities in the process of policymaking.

Many scholars argue that we have entered the Anthropocene, highlighting the impact our human activities have on the world. Some scholars go as far as to argue that the Anthropocene is a form of entropy enacted by human practices that are mediated and intensified by information technology. The information-driven human practices of the Anthropocene also uphold power relations. Next to studying monitors, this research therefore revisits cybernetics and analyses how information technologies have been developing different feedback mechanism over the last centuries and connects these older insights to the current power dynamics of building and using monitors for policy and decision making. Amsterdam and Curacao explicitly provide the context for this comparison, since they have a colonial relation for centuries. At the same time, both collaborate in the change towards sustainable futures. Both are engaged in the making of local data monitors and both work with the Central Bureau of Statistics of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. As a result, the research provides a framework for the making process of monitors that act towards sustainable futures.

Participation of children in international humanitarian crisis - by Aysegul Binalı

The world has been experiencing the worst humanitarian crisis in its history. According to the UN statistics, 130 million people need humanitarian aid, 68.5 million people are forcibly displaced from their homes due to international, non-international armed conflicts, human-made and natural disasters. Fifty percent of those affected by conflict are children; some are victims of torture, sexual and gender-based violence, therefore in need of immediate humanitarian and medical assistance.

This research aims to find alternative ways to address the challenges of the crisis, to improve the assistance for the children caught up in war and conflict, natural disasters and conflicts, to empower children as the agents of their own recovery, to summon greater political will to prevent further war and conflict.

Master students:

• Engineering for Sustainable Development

Minors:

• Management of Technology
• International Entrepreneurship for Development
• Responsible Innovation

Caroline Nevejan lectures on a multitude of topics, always related to her interdisciplinary research, located on the intersection between social sciences, art, design and computer science. Topics include but are not limited to:

• Design of trust;
• Rhythm research;
• Artistic and design research;
• Societal impact of the sciences.

For the complete list please see below under 'publications'. 

NWO grant

In 2017, Nevejan was awarded over 0.5 million euros in funding to make connections between research for the creative industry with Digital Humanities research and large-scale digital infrastructures.

Smart Culture – Big Data/Digital Humanities is a joint initiative of NWO Social Sciences and Humanities, NWO Domain Science, the top sector Creative Industry and Commit2Data. The research projects have a duration of four years.

Nevejan’s project ‘Designing Rhythms for Social Resilience’ will investigate rhythm as a new methodology for forming policy in which data analysis, intervention and design are integratedto strengthen the social resilience in city districts. During the research, a digital platform will be used to collaborate with researchers, civil servants, residents, entrepreneurs, designers and the creative industry.

Other grants

• 2016 - 2018 AMS Institute: City Rhythm in collaboration with 6 municipalities (Budget 195.000, role: principal investigator)
• 2016 SURF: Openresearch.net (Budget 260.000, role: principal investigator of one of the projects which is Openresearch.net)
• 2016 EU Horizon 2020 Brainhack, in collaboration with Waag Society
• 2015 NWO RAAK: Samenmarkt in collaboration with Haagse Hogeschool and 10 horticulture companies. (Budget 300.000, role: initiator)
• 2015 NWO KIEM Creative Industries for “Can I Touch You Online?” (Budget €15.000, role: principal investigator).
• 2014 – 2016 Netherlands National Police and City Council of The Hague for the project BART on safety and social cohesion. (budget 2014 is €60.000, budget 2015 is €60.000, budget 2016 is €40.000. role: member of research team)
• 2011 - 2013 European Institute of Technology (EIT), ICT Labs, ICT Human Mediated. Activities for the project: Mediating Presence. (Budget 2012: € 220.000, Budget 2013: €305.000, role is principal investigator, with Charlie Gullstrom, KTH Stockholm)
• 2009 - 2010 Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture: Artistic Research. Project: Witnessed Presence (budget € 50.000, role: principal investigator
• 2008 Foundation NLnet (budget € 30.000, role: principal investigator)

As of 2017, Nevejan has been appointed as Chief Science Offcer of the city of Amsterdam. The Chief Science Officer creates synergy between the needs and questions of the municipality of Amsterdam and the research that is happening in Amsterdam's universities. To this end, the Chief Science Officer and her team make a yearly inventory of the more than 450 studies that the municipality is engaged in, and publishes these on the Open Research Platform. Also, the SCO matches specific research questions of university researchers with specific research questions of civil servants.