The CICI project has an interdisciplinary research team, informed by sociological, economic,
historical and geographic academic traditions.

Erik Hitters

Erik Hitters

Principal Investigator
Erik Hitters (1964) is Associate Professor at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication of Erasmus University Rotterdam. He has founded and is managing director of ERMeCC, the Erasmus Research Centre for Media, Communication and Culture. He holds a PhD in Social Sciences from Utrecht University. He lectures for the MA programme in Media Studies and IBCoM, the International Bachelor in Communication and Media. ,,Erik’s research interests lie in the broad field of transformations in the media and cultural Industries. His first strand of research deals with the changing logics of institutional and field dynamics in the media and cultural industries, including the film, music and broadcasting industries. His second interest is in local, regional and national cultural industries; His third in media clustering and creative cities.
Pawan V. Bhansing

Pawan V. Bhansing

Postdoc
Pawan V. Bhansing (1979) is a Postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Media and Communication. His main research interest lies in the creative industries and how its organizations balance their creative and economic goals. As Postdoc he focuses on how business incubators and co-located creative organizations perceive and manage innovation. This research is part of the NWO funded project ‘Cultures of Innovations in the Creative Industries’ (CICI).

Before joining the EUR Pawan was a Lecturer and PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam Business School in the Strategy and Marketing department, where he focused on managerial perceptions, cognitions and decision making in the context of film production, music festivals and performing arts. His work shows e.g. how different types of organizational performance of such companies are affected by cognitive diversity, organizational structures, high rates of new product development and perceptions of stakeholders such as reputation and legitimacy.

He obtained a Master of Science in Social and Organizational Psychology at Leiden University, where he
specialized in Economic Psychology and Consumer Behavior and he obtained his PhD in 2013.

Yosha Wijngaarden

Yosha Wijngaarden

PhD Candidate
Yosha Wijngaarden (1987) is a PhD candidate at the Erasmus Research Centre for Media, Communication and Culture (ERMeCC). Under supervision of Dr. Erik Hitters and Prof.dr. Susanne Janssen, she studies how cultures of innovation develop in co-located creative industries. At this moment, she is mainly interested in the effects of the built environment and heritage on creative inspiration, as well as the influence and development of a creative and innovative field within small-scale clusters.

Yosha studied in Amsterdam and received her Bachelor’s degree in History in 2009 (cum laude), followed by a Master’s degree in Sociology and a Research Master’s degree in History in 2012. In her theses, she focused on urban policies and their successes in influencing an area’s reputation as well as on the Dutch science policy and its effects on (scientific) innovation. Before joining the Erasmus Research Centre for Media, Communication and Culture, Yosha worked as a policy officer at NWO.

Her main research interests include science and technology studies, innovation, cultural production, cultural sociology, ethnography, heritage, urban policy and cultural analysis.