On Friday, 19 January, Hajo Reijers held his inaugural lecture in the Academiegebouw of Utrecht University. Since 2019, Reijers has been Professor of Business Process Management & Analytics in the Department of Information and Computing Sciences. In his inaugural lecture, Reijers argues, among other things, that a new scientific discipline is emerging called Process Science. The discipline originates from the analysis of business processes but extends its focus to a much broader range of processes.
Computer scientists have been studying business processes for about thirty years. This has yielded many accomplishments, from workflow management systems to methods for the innovation of business processes. A major recent development in the study of business processes within computer science is process mining. With process mining, it is possible to gain insight into how business processes unfold, based on log files, databases, and other information systems.
Greater impact on science and society
In his inaugural lecture, Reijers argues that a new scientific discipline is emerging: Process Science. Within this discipline, researchers use and extend the methods, tools, and techniques developed for the study of business processes. However, they apply these to analyze a much broader range of processes that also have a greater impact on science and society. "I believe it is time to broaden our view," says Reijers.
Process Science was first defined in a scientific paper in 2021 as the interdisciplinary study of continuous change. A few months ago, a new journal on Process Science was established.
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