The number of social enterprises in the Netherlands has increased rapidly. Social enterprises are looking for new, innovative and economically sustainable ways to tackle structural societal challenges that generally fall outside the direct focus and objectives of the public and private sector. Social enterprises are primarily mission-driven, where profit is not a goal in itself but a means of creating societal impact with regard to a specific social problem. Many social enterprises aim to increase their societal impact by growing their organization. However, despite their ambition, scaling up and expanding their impact remains challenging in practice. This research aimed to identify the main constraining factors in scaling up social enterprises and to develop effective methods to tackle these barriers in order to achieve more societal impact. The research was conducted among twenty social enterprises in the Netherlands, all of which aim to stimulate the labor market participation of people who are at a distance from the labor market, generally referred to as work-integration social enterprises. The results show that the majority of the participating social enterprises succeeded in achieving growth in the past two years with regard to specific indicators, but generally not in the way they had originally planned.
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In a rapidly evolving world, the need for innovative approaches to societal challenges is more critical than ever. As partners of the Network Applied Design Research (NADR), we believe that applied design research can be a promising approach for addressing complex issues in many domains, such as health-care, digital media, and urban sustainability. But what makes applied design research such a power-ful force for societal change? And how can designers move beyond mere problem-solving to create lasting impact? To discuss this, NADR applies an annual knowledge cycle where researchers submit contributions that are mutually reflected upon. The contributions you can read in these preceedings are the result of such a knowledge-sharing process. The twenty-one contributions are divided into four themes, each addressing a different dimension of the issue at hand. Contributions in part 1 – Connecting System Levels - emphasise the relationship between small-scale interventions and large-scale change. Contributions in part 2 - Theory of Change - examine how change processes actually take place. Contributions in part 3 - Balancing Different Worldviews - address the unique perspective that each stakeholder involved contributes. And contributions in part 4 - Beyond Solutionism - discuss whether it is at all possible to develop ready-made ‘solutions’ to the complex challenges we are facing.
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What would Dutch society lose if the Tourism and Recreation sector does not survive and what is needed to preserve its societal value and, preferably even, enhance this value? In this report a combination of methods is used to answer the research question: a literature study, case studies, and a survey among entrepreneurs. A substantial number of scientific articles, advisory reports and conference contributions were analysed in various contexts and for different forms of T&R. In the literature study societal contributions were brought together in a structured manner. The cases reflect the breadth of the sector and serve as good examples of how the sector achieves its societal value, but they also illustrate the challenges. The survey produced several insights. Respondents were asked, for instance, to indicate for each societal value whether they saw a positive, negative or no contribution of the sector. By means of a points system a top 25 was composed and put into a table., this table was used to structure the findings from the study.
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Social issues are becoming increasingly pressing. From dementia to climate change to corona; we as people, citizens, residents and city users - through our own experience or otherwise - have a sense of them. However, truly understanding and addressing these issues is difficult because there is no single owner. Everything is related, intertwined and also changing. Getting an overview and deciding together on necessary steps proves difficult. Complex issues thus become orphaned. Design and more specifically co-design - creative collaboration with others - is increasingly seen as a possible approach to these such issues and collaborations because it can deal with complexity and uncertainty, is optimistic and investigative in nature. With a co-design approach, we can find a shared desire and with that we connect with each other. By then searching together for mechanisms that can lead to the desired values, we gain insights on how to tilt a problematic situation. That enables us to imagine alternative futures. These help us on our way to a better, greener and more social world and social change.
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Het lectoraat Teaching, Learning & Technology onderzoekt de didactische inzet van technologie in leerprocessen. Hierbij kijkt het lectoraat naar thema’s als flexibilisering, gepersonaliseerd leren, activerende didactiek en de effecten van de inzet van technologie in de onderwijspraktijk en dan met name het hoger beroepsonderwijs. Wat tot op heden nog niet was onderzocht was of eerder uitgevoerd onderzoek een aantoonbare impact heeft gehad op de onderwijspraktijk. Dit onderzoek is de eerste fase in het inzichtelijk maken van de impact van onderzoek dat het lectoraat Teaching, Learning & Technology (TLT) van hogeschool Inholland heeft uitgevoerd. Er is daarbij gekeken naar onderzoek in de periode 2010 – 2021. De doelstelling is weer te geven hoe in eerder onderzoek beïnvloedbare impactfactoren zijn vormgegeven. Op basis van deze beschrijving kunnen wellicht aanbevelingen worden gedaan aan het lectoraat waarmee de impact van door hen uitgevoerd onderzoek in relatie tot deze factoren, vergroot kan worden. De onderzoeksvraag is: Hoe beschrijven belanghebbenden de impact van door het lectoraat Teaching, Learning & Technology uitgevoerd onderzoek in relatie tot de beïnvloedbare impactfactoren aangaande het onderzoek, de disseminatie en de (ervaren) gebruikswaarde? Voor het beantwoorden van deze onderzoeksvraag maakten we gebruik van een convergent mixed methods design, waarbij een nieuw conceptueel model als basis diende voor de analyse van data uit het praktijkonderzoek. Daarbij hebben we drie typen data verzameld, namelijk een kwalitatieve documentanalyse (N=31), een survey (N=6) en semi-gestructureerde interviews met participanten van de survey (N=4). Uit het onderzoek bleek dat belanghebbenden vooral de onderzoeker aanwijzen als primaire bron van impact. Impact begint en eindigt bij de onderzoeker, vooral in de mate waarin die zich inzet om het onderzoek relevant te maken en te laten aansluiten op vragen vanuit de onderwijspraktijk. Ten aanzien van de wijze waarop impact in toekomstig onderzoek kan worden bewerkstelligd, benoemen we een aantal aandachtspunten. Deze aanbevelingen zijn vooral gericht op de wijze waarop onderzoekers van het lectoraat gestructureerd aandacht kunnen besteden aan de vormgeving van de samenwerking en aan het concreet in beeld brengen van verwachtingen en beoogde impact in een vroegtijdig stadium.
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Designers are increasingly collaborating with various stakeholders to address complex societal challenges. These challenges often require a codesign approach, where differ-ent actors with diverse perspectives and experiences unite to explore innovative ave-nues for change. Such collaboration requires empathy between the actors to under-stand each other’s perspective better in their interactions. This paper aims to assist so-cial designers in orchestrating such empathic codesign processes by introducing an Em-pathic Journey framework. This conceptual and practical framework is based on em-pathic design theory and three design cases which used Virtual Reality for perspective exchange between actors. The framework addresses the importance of integrating an emotional spark through immersion and the necessity of embedding immersive experiences in a larger journey.
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Active participation of stakeholders in health research practice is important to generate societal impact of outcomes, as innovations will more likely be implemented and disseminated in clinical practice. To foster a co-creative process, numerous frameworks and tools are available. As they originate from different professions, it is not evident that health researchers are aware of these tools, or able to select and use them in a meaningful way. This article describes the bottom-up development process of a compass and presents the final outcome. This Co-creation Impact Compass combines a well-known business model with tools from design thinking that promote active participation by all relevant stakeholders. It aims to support healthcare researchers to select helpful and valid co-creation tools for the right purpose and at the right moment. Using the Co-creation Impact Compass might increase the researchers’ understanding of the value of co-creation, and it provides help to engage stakeholders in all phases of a research project.
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In 2015, the UN set 17 global goals, the so-called Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the year 2030, “a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity”. Although these challenges are global, their impact manifests itself on a local level. An inspiring challenge for HU UAS Utrecht is to educate self-confident (upcoming) professionals who contribute to the realization of these global goals by creating local impact. In our opinion such professionals are socially involved, cope with complexity, think systemic and work trans-disciplinary. Furthermore, they ‘mix and match’ personal, societal and professional development, which will not be confined to formal education but lasts a lifetime. This complex challenge forges us to transform our thinking about education and how to organize learning, and about how, where and with whom we educate. UAS’s will have to cooperate with private, public and research partners and create communities in which all participants work, learn and develop themselves while facing new challenges.
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The research group Teaching, Learning & Technology investigates the didactic use of technology in learning processes. In doing so, it looks at themes such as flexibilisation, personalised learning, activating didactics and the effects of the use of technology in educational practice, particularly in higher vocational education. What had not been investigated so far was whether previously conducted research had a demonstrable impact on educational practice. This study is the first phase in providing insight into the impact of research carried out by the Teaching, Learning & Technology (TLT) research group of Inholland University of Applied Sciences. It looks at research carried out between 2010 and 2021. The objective is to describe how impact factors that can be influenced in previous research have been shaped. On the basis of this description, it may be possible to make recommendations to the research group with which the impact of the research it conducts in relation to these factors can be increased. The research question is: How do stakeholders describe the impact of research carried out by the research group Teaching, Learning & Technology in relation to the impact factors that can be influenced with regard to the research, the dissemination and the user value (experienced)? In order to answer this research question, we used a convergent mixed methods design, in which a new conceptual model served as the basis for the analysis of data from the field research. Three types of data were collected, namely a qualitative document analysis (N=31), a survey (N=6) and semi-structured interviews with survey participants (N=4). The study revealed that stakeholders mainly point to the researcher as the primary source of impact. Impact begins and ends with the researcher, especially in the extent to which he or she makes an effort to make the research relevant and in line with questions from the educational practice. We have listed a number of recommendations with regard to the way in which impact can be achieved in future research. These recommendations are mainly aimed at the way in which researchers of the research group can pay attention in a structured way to the design of the collaboration and to the concrete visualisation of expectations and intended impact at an early stage.
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"Despite many efforts, people with a refugee background still have great difficulties to find a job on the Dutch labour market. This has adverse consequences for the economic independence of people with a refugee background, their social connections, personal development, health and general well-being, but also for employers as well as society in general. There are many sectors in the Dutch labour market with large, structural labor shortages, while at the same time much talent remains untapped. Meanwhile, more and more social enterprises in the Netherlands are stepping into this void, with the explicit goal to facilitate access to the labour market for people with a vulnerable position, including people with a refugee background. Consequently, these so-called work integration social enterprises (WISEs) are — by far — the dominant type of social enterprises in the Netherlands. Although the diversity between WISEs in terms of economic sectors, specific target groups and business models is large, the way in which they organize their key activities can serve as an example for regular employers, who still tend to think in problems rather than opportunities when it comes to employing people with a refugee background. At the same time, the impact of these social enterprises still remains relatively limited in comparison to the scale of the societal challenge. The aim of this study therefore is twofold: 1) to obtain a better understanding of the role of WISEs with regard to the sustainable labor participation of refugees, and 2) to assess the ways in which WISEs can scale their societal impact with respect to labour participation of refugees. These conference proceedings focus in particular on (new) forms of collaboration between WISEs and regular employers that aim to become more inclusive employers."
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