Y2 projects
Experimental Philosophy and the Self
For the past century, philosophy has been understood as a prime example of conceptual research. The idea was that to investigate philosophical questions we only have to do conceptual analysis. More specifically, we should analyze the meaning of our concepts and our pre-theoretical intuitions about those questions. However, for two decades now, a new field of research has emerged: Experimental Philosophy or “X-Phi”. In this field of research, philosophers conduct interdisciplinary research by combining conceptual analysis and empirical methodologies. In trying to answer a question, they focus on philosophy, psychology, sociology, neuroscience, brain sciences, and any other scientific field that is relevant. In this project, students have become experimental philosophers themselves.
Groningen Cycle City
‘Cycle City’ is a second-year project in which three groups explored cycling in Groningen in three entirely different ways. The first group looked into how to make the most dangerous traffic situation safer for cyclists and all other road users. In an online design programme, they have made an adaptation to a very well-known part of town, as an improvement to the city. Secondly, a group focused on creating an interactive game to show how to cycle in the city for newcomers in Groningen. Showing you all the ins and outs of cycling in Groningen for students! Last but not least, a group wanted to make cycling enjoyable and created a route to boost the city and the cyclists, the Grunn Food & Cycle tour! Check out the projects here!
Narratives in Conflict
As individuals, communities, and nations we make sense of events with narratives. When our narratives are in conflict, the result can be personal alienation, social oppression, even war. While research methods like oral history and documentary cannot resolve conflicts, they can help compare and clarify conflicting voices. With clarity, the search for truth can begin. This project has used narrative research methods to gather, analyze, and present conflicting narratives.
Dancing Complexity: Science Communication and Change
Dancing Complexity is a second-year project that focuses on finding a way to explain complex systems in a manner that isn’t limited by traditional scientific communication. Overall, our main goal was to show that emergent phenomena can and should be experienced in a more immersive and interactive environment to enable the comprehension of their complexity. Scientific communication doesn’t solely need to be expressed through data and reports, as more innovative approaches could improve accessibility for broader audiences and help facilitate a deeper understanding. As our project was based on physical interactions, we developed three game prototypes in our subgroups that can be played in a way that replicates complex phenomena. While we won’t be able to play these games in person, feel free to check out our reports to see what we came up with.
The Great Reset
In 2020 the World Economic Forum proposed The Great Reset. Under the motto of Churchill to “never let a good crisis go to waste”, the WEF stimulates global stakeholders to consider the covid-19 crisis as a starting point of political, economic and social improvements. Broad as this plan is, we aimed our project at dissecting it and imagining a future we consider to be desirable. Would you like to inform yourself on the possibilities of our future after the covid-crisis? Come see, hear, and read our Great Reset Magazine and let yourself be inspired!
The Arts in Healthcare Project
‘Arts in Healthcare’ is a second year project in which we explored the different ways arts can improve someone’s overall quality of life. As healthcare settings can be very stressful environments for patients as well as staff, evidence has shown that the practice of arts in healthcare can contribute positively to their overall quality of life. Trained artists (musicians, painters, actors, dancers, etc.) work directly with these people to push their imagination, creativity and connections to their otherwise intense environment.
The Strange bedfellows: What is the thing they called interdisciplinarity?
Interdisciplinarity is a widely used but poorly understood term. There is a wealth of literature about the topic, but beneath the surface details very little of it agrees. In this project, we look into different dimensions of interdisciplinarity, whether it be research, education, job prospects, or epistemology. Check out what each sub-group has found!
Understanding the COVID19 Crisis using Data Science
The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a series of new challenges to governments and health care systems. Stakeholders are employing new techniques to tackle these challenges, one of which is machine learning technology. Testing is one important method for monitoring and therefore controlling the spread of COVID-19. Yet with a serious discrepancy in the resources available between rich and poor countries, not every country is able to employ widespread testing. Here, we developed machine learning models for predicting the number of COVID-19 cases in a country based on multilinear regression and neural networks. The model is trained on data from US states and tested against the reported infections in the European countries. The model is based on four features: Number of Tests, Population, Percentage Urban Population and Gini Index.