Past events

20 June

In a world facing crises like climate change and political turmoil, many turn to profound sources of support such as nature, art, and spirituality. This meetup explores how "infrastructures of mystery" can enhance personal and societal resilience.

Key Takeaways:

• Joost Vervoort introduced the idea of "infrastructures of mystery," focusing on how structural conditions can support deeper connections to the mysteries of existence.
• Participants explored how these infrastructures can bolster wellbeing, social cohesion, and societal creativity, and considered what might be needed to foster such a society.
• The evening featured discussions on personal experiences and the potential benefits of integrating these concepts into policy and democratic frameworks.

Impact: This event aims to map out key themes and questions for further research on creating societal structures that support and cultivate the experience of life's mysteries.

6 June

The Seeds Festival is an evening event showcasing radical sustainability experiments and initiatives from Utrecht and around the world. It highlights innovative 'seeds'—ideas, technologies, and practices that are prototypes and not yet mainstream but contribute to a sustainable future.

Key Takeaways:

• The festival features experimental sustainability projects from Utrecht and globally, offering a platform for showcasing and discussing cutting-edge solutions.
• Attendees can connect with practitioners, students, and researchers involved in sustainability.
• The event aims to inspire new approaches and collaborations in addressing sustainability challenges.

Impact: The Seeds Festival fosters exchange and inspiration, connecting diverse sustainability projects and engaging participants in transformative discussions.

31 May

The third edition of Urban NBS Day explored how urban nature contributes to mental and physical health and why these benefits are often overlooked. Timon McPhearson’s keynote stressed the need for dedicated urban nature strategies, while panel discussions, led by Niki Frantzeskaki, focused on overcoming funding challenges through co-financing and co-creation.

Key Takeaways:

• The positive impact of urban nature on health is well-documented, but strategies to integrate nature into urban planning are lacking.
• Co-financing and co-creation are essential for addressing funding gaps and ensuring stakeholder engagement.
• Successful examples include Dordrecht’s citizen engagement in greening projects and Hong Kong’s educational initiatives on green space benefits.
• There is a need to view urban greening as a value rather than a cost, and to improve integration between research and policy.

Impact: The event enhanced collaboration among academics, policymakers, and practitioners, and highlighted effective community engagement strategies. It also emphasized the importance of high-quality research in supporting urban nature-based solutions for health.

This debate explored how urban nature-based solutions (NbS) are understood and applied in the Global South, contrasting with the often North-centric perspectives. It highlighted the diverse contexts in which NBS are implemented, emphasizing the importance of community engagement, local adaptation, and financing.

Key Outcomes:

• Discussed the unique approaches to NbS in different global contexts and the challenges of replicating solutions across regions.
• Engaged speakers from four continents and included external stakeholders like World Bank experts and policymakers.

Impact:

• The debate fostered ongoing exchanges of content and material, with invitations extended to Egypt and Ghana, and calls for online participation in future events. The aim is to reconvene at COP for further discussions.

Held at the Grand Café of the Vening Meinesz building, this joint event by Science for Sustainability and Transforming Cities explored the integration of AI in urban management, focusing on its potential for enhancing sustainability and the challenges it presents.

Key Outcomes:

• Marco Pellegrino discussed using AI for simulating infrastructure scenarios, such as dynamic buses, to test sustainable solutions in smart cities.
• Nanna Verhoeff and Michiel de Lange addressed the challenges of integrating AI into urban management, emphasizing the need for sustainability and citizen participation to avoid pitfalls like biases and commercialization.
• Luke Hespanhol examined the blurred boundaries between humans and technology, advocating for environment-centered design while noting the high carbon footprint of current AI technologies.

Impact:

• The event highlighted the need for collaboration, citizen involvement, and interdisciplinary approaches to ensure that AI in urban settings is both responsible and sustainable.

Transforming Cities/UU hosted 50 students, academic mentors, and staff from Nottingham Trent University as part of the European Sustainability Towns Challenge. The students, hailing from Nottinghamshire's most deprived areas, visited Utrecht to explore sustainability initiatives across Europe and develop recommendations for revitalizing their local towns—Mansfield, Ashfield, and Bolsover.

Key Outcomes:

• The visit included a program showcasing various sustainability projects in Utrecht, with presentations from Future Cities, Citizen Engagement, Gemeente Utrecht, and Food for Good.

Impact:

• The students participated in cross-disciplinary teams to address sustainability challenges and will provide actionable advice on making their cities more sustainable.

This session explored the evolving relationship between cities and nature, challenging the traditional separation of urban environments from natural ecosystems. As climate change, biodiversity loss, and urban densification reshape our understanding of urban nature, the concept of 'urban nature-based solutions' is gaining prominence.

Key Outcomes:

• Participants examined how values, interests, and politics influence current practices and future visions of urban nature, considering diverse perspectives on nature’s role in cities—from parks and wildlife to farming and aesthetic contributions.
• Artists, scientists, policymakers, and community representatives from Colombia and the Netherlands shared their insights on urban nature and envisioned shared urban futures for 2060.

Impact:

• The session facilitated a dialogue to (re)imagine the integration of nature in urban planning and policy.

This session, organized collaboratively by the Transforming Cities Hub, the Sustainable Education Hub, and the Critical Pathways Hub, was held as part of the conference theme "See the Future" and engaged 80 attendees in exploring personal and organizational theories of change. It aimed to clarify how transformative impact can be achieved in research, education, and public engagement.

Key Outcomes:

• Dr. Irene Guijt (Oxfam Great Britain) provided an overview of theories of change; Joost Vervoort discussed research perspectives; Liset Meddens shared insights from activist campaigns; Karin Rebel linked teaching, research, and impact; and Rens van Tilburg addressed shifts in the financial sector.
• The session involved dialogues and training to examine and refine theories of change, emphasizing diverse pathways and mechanisms for achieving impact.

Impact:

• Attendees shared lessons learned, which were digitally captured, reflecting a broad range of insights from the session’s diverse perspectives.

Organized by Utrecht University School of Economics and TU Eindhoven, the Urban NBS Day 2023 focused on integrating nature within the real estate sector, emphasizing both the potential benefits and the risk of exacerbating social inequalities.

Key Outcomes:

• Highlighted the need for improved interdisciplinary understanding of concepts like biophilic design, green buildings, and urban nature-based solutions (NbS).
• Stressed the importance of engaging the right stakeholders, addressing self-efficacy, awareness, and implementation convenience.
• Discussed the impact of effective messaging, collaboration through joint business cases, citizen science projects, and promoting psychological ownership to enhance accessibility and engagement.

Impact:

• Follow-up activities include a paper based on a Delphi Study, student poster pitches and feedback, an exhibition, and planning for future events.

Utrecht University and the Social Impact Factory hosted the Seeds Festival, an evening dedicated to showcasing innovative sustainability experiments and initiatives. The festival highlighted both local and international 'seeds'—emerging ideas and technologies contributing to a sustainable future.

Key Outcomes:

• The festival featured a dynamic marketplace where 70 guests from various sectors engaged with 180 student presentations on sustainability projects. Local initiatives from Utrecht were paired with exciting international experiments.
• The event facilitated intense interactions between students, practitioners, and guests. Feedback on student projects was well-received, and many guests expressed interest in the presented ideas and materials.

Impact: The festival fostered meaningful exchanges and set the stage for ongoing collaborations and future sustainability projects.

This first debate explored the intersection of politics and science, focusing on how urban scholars can engage with and influence political debates. Participants examined the evolving role of scientists in shaping policy and the boundaries of science's influence in these debates.

Key Outcomes:

• The debate sparked meaningful conversations about the role of scientists in contemporary urban challenges and generated ideas for future debates, including topics on digital transformations and urban theory of change.

Impact: The event attracted a diverse audience from across the university and served as a catalyst for continued engagement, with many attendees participating in subsequent debates.

This debate examined whether rewilding benefits city residents or serves urban neoliberal agendas, addressing emotional connections to nature, the need to decolonize nature protection, and the importance of diverse perspectives.

Key Outcomes:

• The debate, co-organized with the NBS UU Alliance team, prompted a new discussion on nature-based solutions in the Global South.
• It also highlighted the strategic initiative to enhance campus biodiversity, resulting in increased student interest in related thesis projects and stronger connections with the Green Office of the University.

Impact: The debate led to the publication of the paper, "Renaturing Cities: From Utopias to Contested Realities and Futures" in Urban Forestry and Urban Greening (2023) and inspired ongoing research and practical initiatives within the university community.

This debate explored the role of digital technologies in addressing urban issues within the context of the fourth industrial revolution, questioning whether advancements like Smart Cities truly tackle problems such as urban injustice, poverty, and exclusion, or if they merely introduce new challenges.

Key Outcomes:

• The debate featured a blend of insider and critical perspectives on technology’s role in cities, including smart city design and its challenges, AI technologies, and the need for social innovation and humanization within urban visions.
• The discussion included both utopian and dystopian scenarios, fostering a nuanced conversation about the impact of technology on urban life.

Impact: The event brought together researchers from TU Delft and TU Eindhoven, enriching the discussion with diverse viewpoints. It led to further research interest and discussions on the implications of technology for sustainable urban development.

This debate addressed the rise of populist resistance to sustainability, exploring the implications of acknowledging populist concerns while confronting their denial of environmental risks. The nature of populism, societal polarization, and the challenges of science communication in a divided world and the role of emotions were discussed.

Key Outcomes:

• The debate highlighted how narratives can exacerbate extremes and polarization, and explored strategies for engaging with diverse perspectives in the context of sustainability.
• The event brought together insights from Critical Pathways, Dare to be Grey, and the Freudenthal Institute, fostering a comprehensive discussion on these complex issues.

Impact: The debate successfully engaged academics from various faculties at UU, as well as social actors and alumni, facilitating a multidisciplinary dialogue

Organized by Assistant Prof. Dr. Israa Mahmoud from Politecnico di Milano, this roundtable provided a platform for discussing how cities can integrate nature-based solutions into their planning and governance. The focus was on the transformative potential of these solutions in urban regeneration projects, with particular attention to inclusivity and justice.

Key Outcomes:

• The discussion revisited themes from previous debates, such as the role of scientists in bridging policy, science, and community efforts for urban greening. It also explored how to co-design nature-based solutions to be both transformative and just, and how various approaches are being tested and developed.
• The roundtable was organized in collaboration with the UU NBS Alliance team and utilized a blended format to enhance outreach and engagement.

Impact: The event successfully brought together UU academics, social actors, and alumni, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration. It resulted in the preparation of a perspective paper with contributions from the participants, continuing the exploration of integrating nature-based solutions in urban contexts.

This debate addressed the challenge of achieving inclusive sustainability in cities, emphasizing how current approaches might exacerbate existing inequalities. The discussion focused on finding synergies between equality and sustainability rather than accepting trade-offs.

Key Outcomes:

• Marleen Stuiver (WUR) argued for deconstructing the trade-offs and seeking a new understanding of socio-ecological fairness
• Jesse Hoffman (UU/Urban Futures) highlighted the justice implications of renewable energy projects in the Global South.
• Nenia Jochemsen (UU) emphasized the need to consider more-than-human perspectives and envision places as sources of hope.
• The debate advocated for rethinking urban imaginaries and inclusivity as a multiplicity of opportunities, challenging the traditional narrative of trade-offs.

Impact: The event, co-organized with the CITEUS network, successfully engaged academics from various faculties at UU, social actors, and alumni. It led to the preparation of a perspective paper involving participants, furthering the discussion on integrating equality and sustainability.

The mini-conference, organized in collaboration with PBL (Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency) and Trancity, the mini-conference convened individuals from various professional and non-professional backgrounds in planning, design, and science to explore diverse perspectives on justice.

Key Outcomes:

• The event highlighted the broad spectrum of viewpoints on justice, facilitating discussions on how to conceptualize, communicate, and implement justice in urban planning and design.
• It led to the formation of a community of practice focused on the concept of the ‘just city,’ with over 25 active members from various professional fields and geographical locations. Additionally, a PhD group centered on justice, comprising more than 25 members from different universities, was established.

Impact:

• The conference successfully created a network of practitioners and researchers dedicated to advancing the discourse on justice in urban contexts, providing a foundation for future collaboration and research.