This booklet was published as a result of the inaugural lectures by Johan Wempe and Michel van Hulten. Within Saxion, professors cooperate in knowledgecentres, the advantage being that they can set up joint multidisciplinary research lines in addition to their own research.
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In a matter of weeks last year, discussions regarding tourism in cities changed from how to deal with overtourism to how to deal with ‘no tourism’. Shortly thereafter, a great number of posts on LinkedIn, websites, and blogs highlighted how the tourism crisis that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic could help reinvent tourism, into something more equal, inclusive, and sustainable. And so, online – at leastin mypersonalonlinebubble – there seemedtobe a real momentum for proper, transformative changes in (urban) tourism. How can we rebuild urban tourism in a sustainable and resilient way?
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Inaugural lecture, delivered upon public acceptance of the endowed professorship in Professionalisation of Nursing and Care in Elderly Care by Prof. Dr. Robbert J.J. Gobbens at Tilburg University on 29 September 2023.
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On the 11th of may 2016 dr. ir. J. Dam officially started his professorship in Sustainable LNG Technology at the Hanze University of Applied Science. In this Inaugural speech he declared his hopes and plans for the Hanze University and it's Centre of Expertise - Energy.
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A year later, in 2013, the Westerkwartier Area Cooperative was established – a new form of cooperation at the regional level, involving hundreds of dairy farmers, other SMEs, Terra MBO as the representative of the knowledge institutions in the region, the National Forest Service in the Netherlands (‘Staatsbosbeheer’), the Groningen Countryside Association (‘Landschapsbeheer Groningen’) and, later on, the De Zijlen healthcare institution. A year later, this initiative was followed by the establishment of the Southwest Drenthe Area Cooperative, another formalised multi-stakeholder cooperative on a large scale, bound together by a shared agenda. The members of these two new cooperatives sought to bring together and strengthen local and sectoral initiatives at the regional level. Because of their close cooperation with knowledge institutions, they hoped that practice-based research would yield a lot of results. At the many evening meetings and during workshops, spirited debates were held about new concepts such as bio-based economy, new concepts in food and health, alternative methods of energy production, but also ways of improving the quality of life in the region, strengthening the tourism industry and creating jobs for young people. Those involved were all too aware that the existing educational and research institutes and government agencies, and the organisational structures used by businesses, tend to do more harm than good, which led to the call for Next Education, Next Governance and Next Business. It became apparent from these discussions that there were many knowledge questions to be explored, and the need arose for a permanent link with the knowledge institutions through the establishment of a separate professorship focused on sustainable and cooperative entrepreneurship for the benefit of the entrepreneurs involved as well as for the education sector, the government and the general public. This is how the Sustainable Cooperative Entrepreneurship professorship came about, as part of the Sustainable Financial Management professorship chaired by Dr Margreet Boersma at Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen’s School of Financial and Economic Management. I am honoured to be giving this new professorship shape, and I would like to point out that I will not be doing this on my own – I am only the figurehead of a very substantial group of innovative and ambitious entrepreneurs, students, lecturers, public servants, citizens and colleagues. The Innovation Army is marching. And if you are not a part of it yet, now is the time to get involved!
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Our planet’s ecology and society are on a collision course, which manifests due to a contradiction in the assumptions of unlimited material growth fueling the linear economic paradigm. Our closed planetary ecosystem imposes confined amounts of space and a finite extent of resources upon its inhabitants. However, practically all the economic perspectives have been defiantly neglecting these realities, as resources are extracted, used and disposed of reluctantly (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2015). The circular economy attempts to reconcile the extraction, production and usage of goods and resources with the limited availability of those resources and nature’s regenerative capabilities This perspective entails a shift throughout the supply chain, from material science (e g non-toxic, regenerative biomaterials) to novel logistical systems (e g low-carbon reverse logistics). Because of this, the circular economy is often celebrated for its potential environmental benefits and its usefulness as a blueprint for sustainable development (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2017). Unfortunately, the promise of the circular economy aiming at enhanced sustainability through restorative intent and design (McDonough & Braungart 2010), is often inhibited by institutional barriers posed by the current linear economy of take, make, use and waste (Ghisellini et al. 2016). Underlying those barriers our cultural paradigm celebrates consumerism, exponential growth and financial benefit instead of human values such as diversity, care and trust. Based on a mapping exercise of the circular economy discourse in the Netherlands and an overview of international (academic) literature (Van den Berg 2020) supplemented with collaborative co-creation sessions, visiting events, conferences, giving talks and classes, we have defined a gap leading to the focus of the Professorship. First, we highlight the importance of a process approach in studying the transition from a linear to a circular economy, which is why we use the verb ‘entrepreneuring’ as it indicates the movement we collectively need to make. The majority of work in the field is based on start-ups and only captures snapshots while longitudinal and transition perspectives - especially of larger companies - are missing (Merli et al. 2019; Geissdoerfer et al. 2018; Bocken et al. 2014). We specifically adopt an entrepreneurship-as-practice lens (Thompson, Verduijn & Gartner 2020), which allows us to trace the doings – as opposed to only the sayings - of organizations involved in circular innovation. Such an approach also enables us to study cross-sector and interfirm collaboration, which is crucial to achieve ecosystem circularity (Raworth 2019). As materials flow between actors in a system, traditional views of ‘a value chain’ slowly make way for an ecosystem or value web perspective on ‘organizing business’. We summarize this first theme as ‘entrepreneurship as social change’ broadening dominant views of what economic activity is and who the main actors are supposed to be (Barinaga 2013; Calás, Smircich & Bourne 2009; Steyaert & Hjorth 2008; Nicholls 2008). Second, within the Circular Business Professorship value is a big word in two ways. First of all, we believe that a transition to a circular economy is not just a transition of materials, nor technologies - it is most of all a transition of values We are interested in how people can explore their own agency in transitioning to a circular economy thereby aligning their personal values with the values of the organization and the larger system they are a part of Second, while circularity is a broad concept that can be approached through different lenses, the way in which things are valued and how value is created and extracted lies at the heart of the transition (Mazzucato 2018). If we don’t understand value as collectively crafted it will be very hard to change things, which is why we specifically focus on multiplicity and co-creation in the process of reclaiming value, originating from an ethics of care Third, sustainability efforts are often concerned with optimization of the current – linear – system by means of ecoefficient practices that are a bit ‘less bad’; using ’less resources’, causing ‘less pollution’ and ‘having less negative impact’. In contrast, eco-effective practices are inherently good, departing from the notion of abundance: circular thinking celebrates the abundance of nature’s regenerative capacities as well as the abundance of our imagination to envision new realities (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2015). Instead of exploiting natural resources, we should look closely in order to learn how we can build resilient self-sustaining ecosystems like the ones we find in nature. We are in need of rediscovering our profound connection with and appreciation of nature, which requires us to move beyond the cognitive and employ an aesthetic perspective of sustainability This perspective informs our approach to innovating education: aesthetics can support deep sustainability learning (Ivanaj, Poldner & Shrivastava 2014) and contribute to facilitating the circular change makers of the future. The current linear economy has driven our planet’s ecology and society towards a collision course and it is really now or never: if we don’t alter the course towards a circular economy today, then when? When will it become urgent enough for us to take action? Which disaster is needed for us to wake up? We desperately need substitutes for the current neo-liberal paradigm, which underlies our linear society and prevents us from becoming an economy of well-being In Entrepreneuring a regenerative society I propose three research themes – ‘entrepreneurship as social change’, ‘reclaiming value’ and ‘the aesthetics of sustainability’ – as alternative ways of embracing, studying and co-creating such a novel reality. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-poldner-a003473/
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Inaugural VisionProfessorship International Business
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Inaugural address of Frederike Praasterink, Professor Future Food Systems 22 February 2018. Three important principles contribute to the transformation of food systems: - Redesign food systems from ‘less bad’ to ‘net positive’ - Reconnect consumers, producers, youth - Revalue food through true cost accounting and new business models
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Ascertaining the contribution of research is complex; this is not a conclusion but a starting point for the preliminary thoughts in this inaugural lecture. The guiding question is: where does this complexity lie? The dominant answer that has taken root in many practices flattens this complexity into a line. As a handle, or a rule of thumb. The concept of continuous effects serves as a crowbar to break open this one-dimensionality, not least to do more justice to practice-based research at universities of applied sciences. This allows for a different way of looking at how practice-based research contributes to change: from continuous effects ‘stretching each moment to the fullest’ and indicators of the effects of direct interactions, to multiple action perspectives beyond merely generating new knowledge to bring about change.
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In her inaugural lecture, Sabine Niederer presents visual methodologies that take into account the contemporary state of digital images and demonstrates how visualizations may be put to use for collaborative research.
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