For the fifth consecutive year, Hudson and Vlerick Business School have joined forces to organise the HR Barometer, a survey that analyses the trends and challenges in the Belgian HR sector. So what are its main findings? Firstly, HR focuses on many different things, going beyond mere recruitment and staff administration. Secondly, HR analytics is not a priority for Belgian companies (or at least not yet). Lastly, HR managers would love to focus on agile working, but meet with resistance, even from senior management.

Doctoral researcher Martin Roach developed an economic model for power-to-gas (PTG) that anticipates the EU and Belgian regulation of sector coupling. “Being one of the first to take into account market dynamics, it provides timely and valuable input to the debate”, says a proud professor Leonardo Meeus.

A considerable number of case studies on financial planning have been developed, but it is more difficult to find ones that deal with financial planning in a regulated environment. For the Future Grid Managers Programme, Professor Filip Roodhooft, along with colleagues from the Energy Centre, straight away developed two that play out in the regulated energy sector. In the leading roles are the Belgian distribution system operator (DSO) Eandis, now Fluvius, and the French transmission system operator (TSO) Réseau de Transport d’Électricité (RTE).

On your marks, get set, go! In mid-February, for the third year running, we organised a “digital sprint” course. Vlerick lecturer Willem Standaert, our students, our Chair partner Accenture and its clients AXA and Ores worked together in a digital ecosystem over the space of one week. And this is just one way of putting our Digital Chair with Accenture into action.