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Are incubators the new wonder tool for entrepreneurship education?

In the nineties of the last century, a lot of (ICT) incubators started in the Netherlands, many private (GorillaPark, Ant Factory, Lost Boys and Newconomy), some public, such as Twinning. Most of them stopped early this century or gone bankrupt. From 2005 university incubators like YesDelft!, Erasmus MC Incubator, UtrechtInc, Biopartner and ACE opened their doors to students which operate alongside the curriculum. Afterwards also incubators of colleges aroused, often integrated with education. Enterprize of the The Hague University of Applied Science was one of the first ones. In recent years, all kinds of private initiatives arises, called Accelerators (Rock Start and Start-Up Boot Camp). The primary purpose of an incubator is to create successful entrepreneurs, for different reasons. Much research has been done to the success rate of companies through incubators. It is assumed that the entrepreneur of a successful business should have learned a lot in this initial period. In the emerged entrepreneurial education it is therefore assumed that incubators also should be a good tool for students to quickly and efficiently learn. But is that so? As a successful serial entrepreneur, I started more than ten incubators. Most of them were a tool for regional development, cluster development or for further investments (private equity). Now he wanders if an incubator can also be a tool for teaching. He has been given the opportunity to researche this at the The Hague university for applied sciences; “What is the (added) value for entrepreneurship education of an incubator?” This paper is a preamble to that research and a call for participation.

Nature-based urban development in practice

Habitat fragmentation caused by urbanization and climate change are important drivers of biodiversity decline and ecosystem degradation (McKinney, 2002). Governmental inaction results in cascade effects, such as the extinction of species and the weakening of ecosystem services that citizens depend on. Alarming studies show the continuing loss of nature within European cities as they densify further to meet the demand for housing (Balikçi et al., 2022). The housing market is currently impacted negatively by economic factors and municipalities often respond by scaling back their sustainability ambitions. To avoid cosmetic greening of cities, the eco-social value of urban developments and their contribution to climate-change adaptation need to be made measurable. Developing nature-based urban areas offers opportunities to increase socio-ecological resilience (McPhearson et al., 2015; Spanjar et al., 2022).In the two-year Nature-Based Area Development study researchers at four Dutch universities collaborated with planning professionals in cities, regions and companies to investigate how nature-based urban development can become a forceful reality. The study applied a combination of methods such as co-research sessions with consortium partners, in-depth interviews with experts and a multiple case study analysis of best practices in the Netherlands and abroad. Malmö and Stockholm are frontrunners in applying innovative green planning instruments such as Green Area Factor to meet high environmental ambitions (Kruuse, 2011). These instruments were also analysed and compared with eco-city projects in the Netherlands to identify their effectiveness in fostering nature and ecosystem services.The analysis shows barriers in governance and spatiality between public and (semi-)private developments. Policy silos and ownership divisions often lead to standalone interventions that negatively impact social and ecological connectedness and projects’ potential for climate-change adaptation. Nature-based urban developments require a proactive effort to understand the precise ecological demands across scales and how they can be harnessed effectively in these complex planning processes. The results of the study provide key lessons and inspiration to enable authorities to implement more effective nature-based planning instruments.

Steering resilience in coastal and marine cultural heritage

Coastal and marine cultural heritage (CMCH) is at risk due to its location and its often indefinable value. As these risks are likely to intensify in the future, there is an urgent need to build CMCH resilience. We argue that the current CMCH risk management paradigm narrowly focuses on the present and preservation. This tends to exclude debates about the contested nature of resilience and how it may be achieved beyond a strict preservationist approach. There is a need, therefore, to progress a broader and more dynamic framing of CMCH management that recognises the shift away from strict preservationist approaches and incorporates the complexity of heritage’s socio-political contexts. Drawing on critical cultural heritage literature, we reconceptualise CMCH management by rethinking the temporality of cultural heritage. We argue that cultural heritage may exist in four socio-temporal manifestations (extant, lost, dormant, and potential) and that CMCH management consists of three broad socio-political steering processes (continuity, discontinuity, and transformation). Our reconceptualisation of CMCH management is a first step in countering the presentness trap in CMCH management. It provides a useful conceptual framing through which to understand processes beyond the preservationist approach and raises questions about the contingent and contested nature of CMCH, ethical questions around loss and transformation, and the democratisation of cultural heritage management.

Citizen Science for public health.

Cartilage tissue turnover increases with high- compared to low-intensity resistance training in patients with knee OA

ObjectivesTo investigate cartilage tissue turnover in response to a supervised 12-week exercise-related joint loading training program followed by a 6-month period of unsupervised training in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). To study the difference in cartilage tissue turnover between high- and low-resistance training.MethodPatients with knee OA were randomized into either high-intensity or low-intensity resistance supervised training (two sessions per week) for 3 months and unsupervised training for 6 months. Blood samples were collected before and after the supervised training period and after the follow-up period. Biomarkers huARGS, C2M, and PRO-C2, quantifying cartilage tissue turnover, were measured by ELISA. Changes in biomarker levels over time within and between groups were analyzed using linear mixed models with baseline values as covariates.ResultshuARGS and C2M levels increased after training and at follow-up in both low- and high-intensity exercise groups. No changes were found in PRO-C2. The huARGS level in the high-intensity resistance training group increased significantly compared to the low-intensity resistance training group after resistance training (p = 0.029) and at follow-up (p = 0.003).ConclusionCartilage tissue turnover and cartilage degradation appear to increase in response to a 3-month exercise-related joint loading training program and at 6-month follow-up, with no evident difference in type II collagen formation. Aggrecan remodeling increased more with high-intensity resistance training than with low-intensity exercise.These exploratory biomarker results, indicating more cartilage degeneration in the high-intensity group, in combination with no clinical outcome differences of the VIDEX study, may argue against high-intensity training.

Why conservation scientists should re‐embrace their ecocentric roots

We address the explicit ecocentric roots of conservation science and the support of a growing number of conservationists for ecocentric natural value. Although ecosystem‐services arguments may play an important role in stemming the biodiversity crisis, a true transformation of humanity's relationship with nature ought to be based in part on ecocentric valuation. Conservation scientists have played a leading role in initiating this transformation, and they ought to continue to do so. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13067 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/