Our community

Changemakers advances the institutional transformations through which societies move toward sustainable, resilient, and broadly shared wellbeing. We study how bottom-up initiatives, transformational actors within governments and corporations, and intermediaries reshape the rules, ownership structures, and governance that distribute power and prosperity. Combining historical, empirical, and computational methods with transdisciplinary experimentation, we co-produce knowledge with practitioners.

Given our substantive and methodological focus, we organize into four Special Interest Groups (SIGs). This organization into SIGs can be subject to change and progressive insight. 

I. Community Initiatives & Civic Societies (CI&CS)
Citizen-led initiatives and civic societies address pressing societal challenges such as the energy transition, inclusive diversity, rising care needs in an ageing population, precarity and underfunding of the art and cultural sector, and safety net functions. Beyond service provision, these initiatives create spaces for so-called co-creative democratic decision-making, enabling citizens to deliberate, set priorities, and co-create locally tailored solutions.

II. Sustainable Finance (SF) 
Sustainable finance aims to direct capital towards long-term sustainability transitions, while transformative investment focuses on actively shaping a just transition.This SIG brings together public and private investors and researchers in transdisciplinary experiments to co-create and test new investment practices.

III. Entrepreneurship & Corporations (E&C)
Entrepreneurship, both at the micro - and the corporate level, can address societal challenges in areas such as broader wellbeing, inclusiveness in the labor market, care, innovation, renewable energy, and sustainable agriculture. This SIG studies social, inclusive and community-driven entrepreneurs, innovative corporate manifestations such as steward ownership or trust-based grassroots impact investing, and the resurgence of (local) government ownership.

IV. Governance, Networks & Intermediaries (GN&I) 
Globalization and technological change have increased market complexity, intensifying inequality, power imbalances, and risks to sustainability, democracy, and security. Corporate power - shaped by corporate and public governance and procurement - affects how prosperity and justice are distributed.

The everyday coordination of the community lies with our multidisciplinary team of coordinators. Logistic support is offered by the Community Manager and student-assistants. Support on content and policy making is offered via a multidisciplinary core team from Institutions for Open Societies.

Contact

The easiest way to contact us is via our e-mail address: changemakers@uu.nl.

Coordinators en Community manager

Core team

  • dr. Rense Corten

    Associate Professor
    Social and Behavioural Sciences - Social Sciences - Sociology

  • dr. Selin Dilli

    Associate Professor
    Researcher
    Humanities - Research Institute for History and Art History - Economic and Social History
    Humanities - Department of History and Art History - Economic and Social History
    Humanities - Department of History and Art History - Economic and Social History
    Humanities - Department of History and Art History - Economic and Social History

  • dr. Friedemann Polzin

    Associate Professor
    Law, Economics and Governance - Utrecht University School of Economics - Entrepreneurship

  • dr. Vitezslav Titl

    Associate Professor
    Law, Economics and Governance - Utrecht University School of Economics - Economics

  • dr. Matthijs Punt

    Assistant Professor
    Geosciences - Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development - Innovation Studies