Interdisciplinary Research

The platform Bottom-up Initiatives for Societal Change has a strong focus on interdisciplinairy research due to our affiliated scholars coming from all four faculties ivolved in IOS.

We aim to facilitate collaborations on projects such as the development of grant proposals (e.g. Horizon, seed grants). We bring people together from the earlier hubs and stream as well as other platforms and strategic themes suitable to build consortia for certain proposals. We aim at interdisciplinary scientific progress as well as societal impact.

Current Projects

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  Enabling Societal Missions through Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (ESMEE)

  The ESMEE project is gaining insight into regional ecosystems for sustainable entrepreneurship. The project does this through scientific analysis of the mechanisms of ecosystem development, and the relationships between sustainable entrepreneurship and societal missions. 

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  Boosting Social and Community-driven Entrepreneurship for the Transition to an Inclusive and Sustainable Society (SCENTISS)

  Social and community-driven entrepreneurs (SCEs) come up with innovative solutions for local societal problems. However, scaling up the impact of SCEs is hampered by complexity. Through joint learning processes and new tools, the project arrives at new insights to strengthen and increase impact.

Bottom-up Research Initiatives

At the moment there are several research initiatives taking place within the platform. After the official kick-off of our platform, we granted a research fund to three projects. Additionally, our platform members are collaborating on setting up the Centre on Scaling.

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  'Mapping Futures through Movements: Imaginaries of Justice and Sustainability'

  Flor Avelino (f.r.avelino@uu.nl) and Anestis Amanatidis from the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development received a grant for their project, titled 'Mapping Futures through Movements: Imaginaries of Justice and Sustainability'. They will devote the rest of 2023 to mapping imaginaries of just and sustainable futures, which are enacted by movements of bottom-up initiatives with an online presence.

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  'Entrepreneurs as Initiators of Societal Change'

  Second, Joost Dankers (j.j.dankers@uu.nl), Marten Boon & Bram Bouwens got funding for their project 'Entrepreneurs as Initiators of Societal Change'. Their research is on the response of Dutch entrepreneurs to societal challenges using a historical perspective. By conducting interviews with innovative and social entrepreneurs, as well as innovators in incumbent industries, they aim to gain insight in the role of entrepreneurs in the initiation of societal change.

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  'Climate-Cultures as Key to Bottom-up Initiatives (Cli-Cultures)'

  The third granted research project 'Climate-Cultures as Key to Bottom-up Initiatives (Cli-Cultures)' is from Bishawjit Mallick (b.mallick@uu.nl) and his colleagues. Their research investigates community-based initiatives in five Asian countries which distinguish the local knowledge, skills and resources for effective climate change-related action. In december 2023, they will organize a session in all five countries on 'climate-cultures and community-led adaptation'.

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  The Centre on Scaling

  This is our newest project. This centre will focus its research on multiple pathways of embedding innovations in society in the context of 'grand challenges', including pathways representing multiple actors, sectors, levels and institutional logics.