The energy transition requires the transformation of communities and neighbourhoods. It will have huge ramifications throughout society. Many cities, towns and villages have put together ambitious visions about how to achieve e.g. energy neutrality, zero-emission or zero-impact. What is happening at the local level towards realizing these ambitions? In a set of case study’s we investigate the following questions: How are self-organized local energy initiatives performing their self-set tasks? What obstacles are present in the current societal set-up that can hinder decentralized energy production? In our cases local leadership, vision, level of communication and type of organisation are important factors of the strength of the ‘local network’. (Inter)national energy policy and existing energy companies largely determine the ‘global’ or outside network. Stronger regional and national support structures, as well as an enabling environment for decentralized energy production, are needed to make decentralized sustainable energy production a success.
Many countries signed the Paris Agreement in order to mitigate global average temperature rise. In this context, Dutch authorities also decided to realize a maximum of 35% residual waste by 2020 for its own operations. So, 65% of the total waste should be recyclable or re-usable and only a maximum of 35% should be not. This current paper explores how changes in automatic behaviours, facilityoperations and related practice-oriented research can contribute to this aim of the authorities.
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This relationship between external knowledge providers, e.g. consultants and academic institutions, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is a difficult one. SME entrepreneurs think external advice is expensive, not required and/or not useful. In this paper these arguments are explored against the specific characteristics of SMEs. The argument of price probably tells more about the consultants inability to quantify the returns on their advice than about the cost of their services. Support policies enable free consults for SMEs on numerous topics, but the use of these facilities is relatively low. The suggestion that SME entrepreneurs do not need external knowledge is contradicted by their own assessment of their qualities. Typically the entrepreneurs lack expertise in supporting business functions like HR, IT, Finance and Legal. In SMEs these blank spots are not compensated by specialist staff members because the of the scale of the organization. The argument that the advice of an external consultant is generally not useful raises the question whether the insights gained in several business sciences only apply to large companies. This seems unlikely. Given the characteristics of SMEs the difference is probably more the context in which the insights are applied than the content of the insights itself. From the analysis of the characteristics of SMEs the dominant influence of the person of the owner/director, together with the absence of specialist staff, appeared as two of the most significant differences between SMEs and large companies. Given the personal profiles of these owners/directors as studied by Blom (Blom, 2001), the external knowledge providers should realize the three ways in consulting. The first way is the way of thinking. For this way it was stated already that the content of business sciences is not likely to differ for SMEs. The second way, the way of working, represents for the way information is gathered and the entrepreneur and his staff is involved in the process of developing the advice. In this way the consultant should allow for interaction and should make it fun for the participants. In this aspect, the process approach of consulting shows promising. The third way, the way of communicating, represents the way the knowledge is transferred from the advisor to the entrepreneur. In this way it is crucial to acknowledge the different personal profiles of SME entrepreneurs and consultants and to adjust the communication accordingly. Taking the three ways into account, the conclusion could be that the transfer of knowledge should be more the sharing of experiences. The Chair of Management Consulting will adjust her activities to explore this insight further.
WIJS (Wijk Inzet door Jongeren en Studenten) is een samenwerkingsverband van de Hanzehogeschool Groningen, de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, stichting WIJ Groningen, de gemeente Groningen en de regionale opleidingscentra Noorderpoort en Alfa-college. WIJS zet (mbo-, hbo- en wo-) studenten van verschillende opleidingen in bij het onderzoeken en oplossen van (complexe) maatschappelijke opgaven in Groningen. Hierdoor versterkt de leefbaarheid van Groningen en haar inwoners en leren studenten van de inwoners en worden betrokken burgers. Het doel van het City Deal Kennis Maken project ‘WIJS de toekomst in’ is het grootschalig en duurzaam verbinden van het onderwijs en onderzoek van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen en de Hanzehogeschool Groningen met maatschappelijke opgaven van de stad Groningen. De focus ligt daarbij op structurele inbedding en financiële borging van de reeds succesvol gebleken methode van WIJS in verschillende curricula. De Rijksuniversiteit Groningen en de Hanzehogeschool zetten gedurende dit project in op het grootschalig betrekken van studenten, docenten en onderzoekers van zo veel mogelijk faculteiten en interdisciplinaire onderwijs- en onderzoeksprogramma's (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) en op het leggen van meer verbindingen met vakgroepen en lectoraten (Hanzehogeschool Groningen). Daarnaast zal er gezamenlijk worden ingezet worden op het uitbreiden van WIJS naar meer locaties in de stad als ook in de provincie Groningen. Voor zowel de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen als de Hanzehogeschool geldt dat er binnen deze instellingen reeds diverse initiatieven zijn voor het verbinden van onderwijs en onderzoek aan de samenleving. Met behulp van focusgroepen zal het Business Model Canvas worden gevuld. Aanvullende input zal worden gehaald uit de opbrengsten van vele tussentijdse gesprekken met diverse potentiële interne en externe samenwerkingspartners. Aan het einde van het project liggen er twee implementatieplannen, inclusief financieringsmodellen, op instellingsniveau.
