Programme Conference Day

Utrecht University and Witteveen+Bos recently developed and launched the online tool IkBenWaterproof (I am Waterproof). Anybody with an address in the Netherlands can check whether his/her home is vulnerable to pluvial and riverine/coastal flooding. The tool assigns a label to your home for both types of flooding, much like the energy label. It also provides you with various measures to reduce the likelihood and impact of flood events.

At our stand you can check out the label for your home and see which measures are suitable in your particular situation.

Watch a few segments from video essays created by BA students from a variety of cultural and professional backgrounds as part of the Green Media course.

Watch short video overviews of 'historical' and contemporary eco-games

Play some of these games yourself on two game cabinets (provided courtesy of Utrecht-based incubator Dutch Game Garden).

Do you want to know more about how (Green) media, individually and in combinations, can support your sustainability-oriented research, teaching and outreach activities? Check out the Mediography prototype created by the Green Media Studies Initiative at Utrecht University, and meet some of the affiliated researchers.

Science for a sustainable future needs to be open - no doubt about it! How else do we connect to and engage society. Join the folks from Open Science Community Utrecht for a Quick Scan to check how Open your research is and see how you can become (even) more open!

Ask your question about climate change here! At the PtS Conference the KlimaatHelpdesk will set up their first ever physical helpdesk. Climate change can be complex, involving many disciplines. That is why the KlimaatHelpdesk has a network of active experts (currently over 200) in all fields - from physics, economics, biology, geography, to history, law and psychology. Through this network questions can be answered from different angles, maybe even by experts present at the conference. Drop by our desk at the PtS Conference and ask or answer a question about climate change!

Our UU campus is a testing ground for sustainable development. This is where research, education and operations come together. In these ‘Living Labs’ for sustainable development, our interdisciplinary teams collaborate and experiment in live scenarios. Are you interested to learn more about our current Living Labs, such as a biodiverse energy landscape? Then visit the Utrecht University Living Lab stand, debate with Living Lab scholars and professionals and discover how you might be able to contribute with your expertise. See you at UULABS!

This session aims to explore the tensions, contradictions and spaces of possibility that have emerged at the intersection of activism and research in the past years.

On the one hand, the collaboration between research and activism can be a force for Making Change Happen. Many environmental movements, among which Extinction Rebellion (XR), 350.org and Fridays for Future, have built heavily on the scientific evidence on global warming and other environmental problems to mobilize citizens and strengthen their case. 

On the other hand, many scientists and students have joined the ranks or have been leading figures of various environmental movements. These scholar-activists have formed organizations such as Scientists for Future and XR Scientists which specifically aim to support environmental movements by explaining climate science to the public, lending institutional and ‘scientific’ legitimacy to the movements’ campaigns, and doing advocacy themselves among decision makers in government departments and business sectors. 

For the individuals who are positioned at the intersection of activism and research, it is often difficult to navigate the tensions that arise from having such a hybrid profile. Objectivity and detachment versus personal engagement, academic conferencing versus the occupation of public spaces, scientific impact versus social change, etc. The result is that scholar-activists and activist-scholars often risk being contested by the public, singled out and intimidated by far-right and populist movements, and marginalized in either academic or activist circles for not fully complying with the expectations of either circle. These challenges are not experienced only by scholar-activists concerned with global warming and sustainability, but are shared by other scholar-activists working on other societal issues such as gender inequality, labour rights, or democratization all over the world.

This is a highly interactive session, which will involve short statements by the following speakers: Dr Giuseppe Feola, Dr Sanli Faez, Bruno Bottega Pergher, Dr Ammar Maleki, Prof Patrizia Zanoni, Dr Elisabet Dueholm Rasch. Followed by small group and plenary discussions addressing the session’s driving questions. The session is led by Dr Dan Hassler-Forest.

The main challenges of our times are rooted in our deep addiction to infinity, argue philosopher/biomedic Walter Breukers and historian/artist Jaap Godrie in their latest book, Addicted to Infinity. ‘Making change happen’ starts with a radical rehab. This rehab starts with a detoxification of deeply engrained patterns of thought that are, often, hidden for those that are nevertheless haunted by them. Breukers & Godrie have developed an experimental therapy that brings up our collective forms of addiction and heals us through a humorous yet confronting therapy. During this session they will be testing their new therapy on you.

Walter Breukers and Jaap Godrie studied biomedical sciences, philosophy, academy of art and music and economic and social history together. They combine their diverse backgrounds to think in a new way about the major themes of our time, such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, trust and democracy, sense of purpose, the future of the city and new forms of economy.

Acting on the sustainability challenge requires a thorough transformation of the chemical industry. Such a radical innovation of the chemical sector (‘Greening Chemistry’)  touches on all aspects of this industrial ecosystem, including the policy regime, the (global) value chains, and the hardware and the software of education and experimentation. In this session key thinkers from the world of chemistry (science and industry) and innovation (academics and policy makers) will sit together to plot what steps to take. What bold moves can we agree to make?

For the next phase of Pathways to Sustainability (2022 onwards) we want to develop and fund so-called ‘Signature Projects’. These are to be concentrated and guided group efforts that work on highly challenging topics to produce scientific breakthroughs, educational innovations, or deliver other specific (societal) impacts. By definition, these collaborations span across disciplines and involve stakeholders. In this inspirational interactive session we will hear from concrete examples of existing groundbreaking projects and institutional organisation forms from outside the Netherlands. In discussion with the audience, we will explore what is needed to stimulate and organise such collaborative projects and try to identify the factors for success.