Across European cities local entrepreneurs are joining forces in new ways, forming collectives to stimulate business growth and innovation and to create a more attractive business environment. The value of such collectives is increasingly recognized by local governments and policy measures to stimulate these initiatives are being developed. Amsterdam hosts different collaborative initiatives, including 39 business improvement districts (BIDs).The Knowledge Mile is such a collective in which shopkeepers, other local SMEs, residents work together to collectively improve a large retail area. The city of Amsterdam is also a stakeholder. Government can fill an important role in enabling the creation of collective resource management in urban settings. However, if effective regulation is missing, citizens and governing bodies have to look for incentives to find new means of addressing governance. As such, the potential for collective management of urban commons may be greater than realized so far, as there is still a lack of knowledge in this area. In this paper, we aim to bridge this gap. By means of an embedded case study approach, we analyze the interaction between the stakeholders in their development of a green zone, the Knowledge Mile Park, in the Wibautstraat. In the coming years, roofs, facades and ground level will be changed through a collaboration of residents, entrepreneurs, researchers, civil servants and students in a metropolitan Living Lab. In this Living Lab, solutions for a healthy and social environment, climate resistance and biodiversity are jointly developed, tested and shown. In our study, we will analyze the role of the governing bodies in such initiatives, and make recommendations how collectives can become more mainstream with new kinds of institutions, without an undue burden on the community.
MULTIFILE
In this opinion piece, we establish some key priorities for evidence-based governance to address the increasing threat of heatwave events in Europe, particularly for human health. According to the European Environment Agency (EEA) [1], Europe is warming faster than the global average. The year 2020 was the warmest year in Europe since the instrumental records began, with the range of anomaly between 2.53˚C and 2.71˚C above the pre-industrial levels. Particularly high warming has been observed over eastern Europe, Scandinavia and the eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula. Climate change-related heatwaves are becoming a significant threat to human health and necessitate early action [2]. While financial resources and technological capacities are crucial to aid (local) governments in adapting to and proactively mitigating the threats posed by heatwaves, they are not enough [3]. Akin to flood responses, European countries must prepare for large-scale evacuations of vulnerable citizens (especially older adults living alone) from their homes. Here, we outline three priorities for Europe in the governance domain. These priorities encompass developing and rolling-out heat-health action plans, a stronger role for European Union institutions in regional heatwave governance, and creating a sense of urgency by developing innovative ways of communicating research findings to relevant policy makers and citizens.
When corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a sensemaking process is assessed from a corporate governance perspective, this implies that stakeholders do not only influence companies by promoting and enforcing regulations and other corporate guidelines. They also influence companies by promoting regulation on influence pathways, by demanding that companies develop formal mechanisms that allow companies and stakeholders to discuss and in some cases agree on changes to principles and policies. This perspective suggests that regulation is an outcome of power relations and is, as such, a reflection of certain mental models. As such, mental models reveal the political bias in corporate governance perspectives. For this reason, CSR research needs to be clear about the underlying assumptions about corporate governance, and corporate governance research needs to disclose which mental models of CSR influence the outcomes. Taking a governance perspective on the development of mental models of CSR helps to understand the interaction between CSR and processes of sensemaking at the institutional, organizational and individual levels.
City Deal Nijmegen wil een versnelling tot stand brengen in het oplossen van maatschappelijke opgaven van de stad door onderzoekers, docenten en studenten hierbij grootschalig te betrekken. De Hogeschool van Arnhem en Nijmegen, de Radboud Universiteit en de gemeente Nijmegen hebben zich vanaf 2017 tot doel gesteld om (vaak al bestaande) samenwerking te verduurzamen door het beter ontsluiten en verbinden van succesvolle initiatieven waardoor er een rijke leeromgeving voor studenten kan ontstaan. Onze ambitie is dat over tien jaar een instrumentarium beschikbaar is waarmee kennisinstellingen en gemeente via een interdisciplinaire en multilevel aanpak, in gezamenlijkheid werken aan (grote) maatschappelijke thema’s. De belangrijkste uitdagingen voor de komende twee jaar zijn: 1. Meer interdisciplinair en multilevel maken van onderwijsprojecten 2. Deze projecten op een duurzame en longitudinale manier inbedden in het reguliere onderwijs. Om deze uitdagingen het hoofd te bieden, investeren wij de komende twee jaar op twee manieren in een toekomstbestendige en logische infrastructuur binnen de inhoudelijke thema’s zoals deze zijn vastgesteld in de strategische agenda: 1. Wij investeren in onderwijsinnovatie via een impulsfinanciering; bestaande succesvolle onderwijsprojecten worden verder verspreid over de stad Nijmegen, projecten worden méér interdisciplinair en mulitlevel, projecten worden bij meer opleidingen steviger ingebed in het onderwijs. 2. Wij investeren in netwerk governance; kennisdeling, verbinding, communicatie en onderzoek zijn essentieel bij het opbouwen van een werkend en succesvol instrumentarium.
