Citizen Science: Research in which citizens are actively involved in the entire process is also known as Citizen Science. Citizens work together with professionals from healthcare, welfare and government, as well as with researchers and students. If citizens actively participate in the research, we can come up with interventions that are supported by the people and the community itself. In this way, citizens are involved and, more importantly, part of the planning, execution, implementation and evaluation of research and innovation in their own region. Learning communities: Through learning communities, we want to collaborate with companies, institutions, researchers and knowledge institutions in a sustainable way. By working together on social challenges and creating impact in our region, we can be of added value. We join existing learning communities or we create new learning communities. Technology & Digitalization: Hanze wants to increase the knowledge and skills of students, lecturers, (healthcare) professionals and SMEs in the field of digital innovations in the domain of healthcare and welfare. For example, entrepreneurs can test their new digital products in the dHealth Lab. There, a safe and realistic environment is simulated, where errors can be removed from the product, so that it becomes clear how it can be used in healthcare practice. Digital resources can provide support to improve people’s own health capacity and ensure greater self-management and co-reliance.

It is one of the biggest challenges for the near future: the transition to a sustainable society, which is based on the use of clean energy sources. On a large scale, new solutions and new approaches are needed. The Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen (Hanze UAS) is the leader in applied research into renewable energy. It is one of the universities of applied sciences where students from various disciplines are trained in energy education and are involved in research into energy matters.

With green raw materials, we mean (for example) crops and residual streams from agriculture and the food industry. But that is not the only thing we deal with in the knowledge centre. We look at the entire production chain and its consequences. For instance, in the design phase of a product, we take into account the raw materials and components used and whether they can be reused or recycled. We also look at chemical or industrial production processes and whether they can be more efficient or sustainable. We look at plant-based foods and their effect on our health. Finally, we look at what happens to a product at the end of its life. In other words, our goal is less energy, less waste, less pollution and more saving, recycling, and sustainability.

The water sector needs a paradigm shift from a focus on water treatment and supply, collection and from focusing on the treatment and supply of water, the collection and treatment of wastewater to meet discharge limits, and the processing of the wastes from these operations, to focus on integrated management that waste from these operations, and to focus instead on integrated management that enables a circular water economy with minimal emissions. This change of vision means that the traditional “wastewater treatment plants” are now seen as “water resource recovery and regeneration centres”. From a technological point of view, new developments developments should focus on process intensification, resource recovery and the design of systems that resource recovery and the design of systems that allow high effluent qualities with minimum of emissions, or even achieving carbon neutrality. 

Examples of such new technologies include advanced anaerobic digestion processes, such as advanced anaerobic digestion processes developed in membrane bioreactors, the biological removal of nutrients by means of granular biomass (a process commercially known as Nereda®), the removal of ammonium by partial nitrification followed by a partial nitrification following an anammox process or photobiological systems, based on microalgae and cyanobacteria.

Microalgae can remove nitrogen, phosphorus and organic matter from wastewater and transform it into biomass. In this regard, the joint use of bacteria and microalgae for wastewater treatment has recently attracted the attention of many researchers. Microalgae-based wastewater treatments have emerged in recent years as a potential substitute for conventional treatments, due to their economic and environmental sustainability.