Sustainability Interdisciplinary Thesis Lab announced

It has become a proven concept: clients from the healthcare sector formulate concrete graduation assignments to make healthcare more sustainable. This year, the Sustainability Interdisciplinary Thesis Lab once again invites students to take up the green challenge. In return, they will follow an extensive guidance program. Starting this week, graduates can register.

For many healthcare professionals, it feels contradictory: healthcare makes people better but harms the planet. Seven percent of the total Dutch CO2 footprint is linked to the healthcare sector. One surgery alone produces an average of 12 kilos of waste. A drastic transition is needed to make the sector more sustainable.

Healthcare can be more sustainable, but how?

In recent years, more and more healthcare professionals have become aware of the significant environmental impact of the sector. With previous Thesis Labs, Medical Delta, the LDE Centre for Sustainability, and partners from healthcare practice have contributed to this awareness and explored solutions.

Are you starting your graduation thesis or master's thesis at a university of applied sciences in Zuid-Holland, or one of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus universities? If so, you can apply here before 13 October.

A disposable culture often prevails in healthcare. Every day, eighty garbage trucks full of gloves, syringes, and isolation gowns are thrown away. As a result, the healthcare sector’s CO2 emissions are almost as high as those of the aviation industry. This can be changed. Many materials can be safely reused. Healthcare can be more sustainable without becoming more expensive or riskier. But how?

The next step: implementation

Students are invited to tackle concrete sustainability issues in healthcare. At the same time, they work together on a shared challenge: ‘What is needed to implement and sustain green solutions in the Dutch healthcare sector?

Now that sustainable thinking has gained attention as a topic, it is time for the next step: action! The graduation assignments come from various healthcare organizations and are linked to obstacles that hinder follow-up actions.

We often know that things need to change, but how do you really take action? How do you deal with the tension between financial costs or patient safety and sustainability? Or with outdated legislation and a lack of knowledge? What is needed to change behavior and ensure that people not only talk about sustainability but also take real steps? How do you make collaborations and supply chains more sustainable, and how do you ensure that technological innovations are truly sustainable?

The Thesis Lab offers graduating students (fourth-year hbo or university master's students) the opportunity to investigate this sustainability challenge in healthcare and share practical solutions with stakeholders. This ensures that the research has a direct impact on making healthcare more sustainable.

Cooperation as a common thread

From early February to early July, there are eleven sessions, one every other week. Students engage in discussions with industry professionals and researchers, go on field trips to healthcare practices, and participate in workshops with fellow students and other Thesis Labs. In addition to their own graduation project, they develop a joint final outcome.

The LDE Centre for Sustainability and Medical Delta jointly organize the Thesis Lab ‘Green Healthcare.’ The graduation assignments in this Thesis Lab come from various organizations active in healthcare: Geboortecentrum Sophia, Radboudumc, Zilveren Kruis, LUMC, Johnson & Johnson, Sophia Children's Hospital, Erasmus MC, TU Delft, Knowledge Center for Healthcare Innovation (Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences), The Hague University of Applied Sciences, Reinier de Graaf Group, HagaZiekenhuis, and Alrijne.

More information

An overview of all themes and thesis topics can be found here.

See results from last year's Thesis Lab here.