Research themes
Our interdisciplinary research is centered on four themes. We welcome inquiries and opportunities to collaborate.
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This empirical theme draws primarily on interviews to identify risk areas that businesses are struggling to manage in their governance and operations. Its aim is to help identify issues that businesses can reasonably solve, and those that require broader involvement from other stakeholders.
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This empirical and theoretical research theme examines the content and design of EU and national sustainability policies. It uncovers the mechanisms that these policies rely on to make business more sustainable and evaluates whether they are succeeding in this aim. It also asks whether these mechanisms are suitable for their intended purpose.
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This interdisciplinary research theme investigates how to reconceptualise human sustainable development to better address global crises such as climate change, inequality and authoritarianism. It starts from an ecological, interconnected view of the relationship between people, firms, markets, the state, and the environment.
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This theme explores how businesses can navigate radical uncertainty and global crises. It offers proposals and policies for companies and policy makers to navigate dilemmas around sustainable business. The recommendations are developed and evaluated together with a wide range of stakeholders from business, government, and civil society.
Research output
An overview of our publications.
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An open-access journal article by Dr. Bart Jansen, appearing in Business Ethics Quarterly (published online 19 May 2025). In this thought-provoking piece, Jansen not only engages with the Habermasian model of Political Corporate Social Responsibility, but reframes the debate through the thinking of the controversial German legal philosopher Carl Schmitt, revealing its darker implications – namely, how politicizing corporate ethics may intensify enmity and undermine the reflective dimension of ethical discourse. His analysis challenges prevailing notions of legitimacy, sovereignty, and the evolving political role of corporations in our globalized world.
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This pre-print challenges a central assumption in business and policy today: that we can use economics to tackle market externalities and make firms and societies sustainable. By tracing 250 years of economic thought – from Adam Smith’s classical foundations to modern theories of the firm – it reveals why persistent beliefs in free markets, the invisible hand, and the efficient pursuit of individual self-interest are the root cause of our ailing sustainability transition.
Decades of initiatives such as CSR, ESG, and stakeholder capitalism – designed on the basis of economic methods and objectives – have proven unable to address escalating global crises. This is due to their intellectual foundation in economics which positions markets as natural and self-regulating and prioritises their efficiency over the effective resolution of social and environmental concerns. These efforts fail because the erroneous self-conception of economics as an objective science obscures its normative assumptions, marginalises alternative values, and introduces a structural antagonism with sustainability goals.
In response, the book outlines an alternative to economics: a Generative State and marketecture framework that reimagines value, markets, and firms beyond the conventional understanding of economics. Written for academics, policymakers, and business leaders seeking fresh solutions to the sustainability crisis, this work reframes the debate on how to mobilize money, people, and resources for a liveable future. It opens the door to a new, creative, and pluralist understanding of sustainable human development, and offers a hopeful vision for our shared future.
Open access link: Why economics will never make firms sustainable
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Prof. Bas Steins Bisschop’s farewell lecture (Dutch) reflects on modern corporate leadership in an uncertain world shaped by climate change, inequality, and threats to the rule of law. He stresses that directors and supervisors must look beyond shareholder interests, embracing societal and ethical responsibilities. Rapid technological change and globalization demand purpose-driven, accountable governance. Leaders should act decisively despite uncertainty, guided by legal and moral principles, stakeholder engagement, and the aim of “doing no harm” while contributing positively to society.
Link: Afscheidsrede