Zoekresultaten

Finding the way to direct EU funding for cities

This report is the result of a research interest stemming from the case presented by the City of Budapest on the misalignment between EU funding opportunities and the interdependence of the national government. The main research question was “Which channels exist for a local or regional government to access EU funding directly, without the need for interference of the national government?”. Recent political developments in Hungary have led to an increasing amount of budgetary challenges for the City of Budapest. Besides domestic factors, the European Commission’s decision to suggest to withhold cohesion and RRF funds to Hungary raises the question of what different avenues of direct EU funding instruments might be at the city’s disposal. Therefore, the aim of this research is to provide recommendations on what avenues the City of Budapest might want to invest in in terms of advocacy activities on the EU level. We first conducted a desk research, mapping the current landscape of EU funding instruments under the direct management of the EU (the overview can be found in the appendix). Secondly, ten interviews were conducted in October and November 2022 with several multi-level stakeholders from the European Parliament, the European Commission, the umbrella organisation of cities in the European Union ‘Eurocities’, a Hungarian journalist and a regional representation in Central-Eastern Europe. Based on these conversations, we identified five main findings with corresponding recommendations for action.

Barriers to and Facilitators for Finding and Keeping Competitive Employment: A Focus Group Study on Autistic Adults With and Without Paid Employment

Barriers to and Facilitators for Finding and Keeping Competitive Employment: A Focus Group Study on Autistic Adults With and Without Paid Employment

Finding your feet

Finding common ground

Many coastal communities worldwide are facing challenges caused by increasing sea levels. However, urban development, population growth and industrialisation in low-lying delta regions persist. This includes the Netherlands and British Columbia, Canada. Both regions explore new and innovative flood risk and adaptation strategies by initiating nature-based solutions (NBS) pilot projects and integrating research and community initiatives. The aim of this paper is to learn from the experiences with these NBS pilots and support practitioners with insights and knowledge about the prospectives and implementation process of NBS. Our study takes a bird's eye view by diving into four NBS case study projects that try to enhance flood defence and quality of life while considering ecosystems and community values simultaneously. To better understand current initiatives on NBS, we first describe the historical trajectories of flood risk management and climate adaptation policy in both countries. Then we analyse two urban and two suburban case studies to identify and compare enablers and barriers that surround the implementation of NBS. We use the Pilot Paradox as a framework to reflect on the enablers and barriers, and to formulate recommendations for barriers that are common ground. We found that upscaling of the pilots forms an important challenge in both countries. We also found that Canada is interested in exchanging technical knowledge, experiences, and insights with other countries through the involvement of international researchers, consultants, and students in projects. Such collaboration between countries, communities, practitioners, and academics could accelerate the development of innovative climate adaptation strategies worldwide.

Finding your feet

IntroductionInternational placements challenge students to find the right level of participation, as local practices, language and time pressure may affect their engagement in patient-related tasks or team activities. This study sought to unpack the initiation process during international clinical placements with the ultimate aim to achieve active student participation.MethodsFollowing a constructivist grounded theory approach, we conducted two individual interviews with 15 undergraduate healthcare students (before departure and whilst on placement). To identify emerging themes, we applied an iterative process of data collection and constant comparative analysis. Several team discussions informed further analysis, allowing us to reach a more conceptual level of theory.ResultsFrom our findings we constructed a four-phase model of healthcare students’ initiation of international clinical placements, which brings into focus how the phases of ‘orientation’, ‘adjustment’ and ‘contribution to patient care’ build up towards a ‘sense of belonging’. We identified several factors that induced active student participation in practice, such as a favourable workplace setting, opportunities for learning and a local support network.DiscussionActive student participation is aimed at different goals, depending on the four phases of initiation that eventually lead to a sense of belonging and support workplace learning.

Finding New Perspectives through Theme Investigation

Many challenges that confront today’s society are complex and dynamic and require new perspectives to arrive at solutions that could not be found before. Finding such new perspectives is part of a process called reframing and one of its key stages is theme investigation. Understanding a problem thoroughly is crucial for creating effective solutions and theme investigation offers insight into human and social themes that underlie complex challenges. This article discusses how to investigate such themes, to deepen our understanding, to find a starting point for reframing and creating innovative solutions. This work explicitly experiments with variation (conceptual, personal, and methodological) as a guiding principle for investigating human themes in real life cases. A process, best practices, instruments and tools for theme investigation are presented and discussed.