On Tuesday 8 February, Dr. Camille Meyer (University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business) presented a seminar on the ownership of biological knowledge originally held by indigenous communities. After demonstrating that such knowledge was released to the public domain by colonial botanists, he presented three case studies showing that international, national and local efforts have been made for such resources to be “recommonized” by local communities. In such cases, indigenous communities reclaim ownership of their traditional knowledge by establishing intellectual property rights on biological knowledge.
Livecast ‘Het kan wel!’ (Dutch due to scope)
Op 15 februari 9:30 organiseerde De Omslag een livecast vanuit Pakhuis De Zwijger onder de titel ‘Het kan wel!’ Deskundigen met diverse achtergronden gingen met elkaar in gesprek over het recht op gelijke behandeling en gelijkwaardig meedoen van mensen met een beperking of chronische aandoening, die nu soms aan de kant staan terwijl ze graag willen werken. Met onder meer Agnes Jongerius, Frank Kalshoven, Carol Gribnau en Tine De Moor. The recordings can be found here.
Launch of the CollectieveKracht platform for citizen cooperatives
How do scientists use their knowledge to solve problems faced by today’s citizen collectives? How do policy makers reflect on the collectives’ challenges? And where do financiers come into the picture? The answers to these questions and more were discussed in a livecast on 11 February 2022. This event launched a new, transdisciplinary knowledge exchange platform for citizen collectives: CollectieveKracht.
Bringing stakeholders of citizen-based initiatives together in CollectieveKracht.eu, webinar by Tine De Moor
FOCI Hub is an initiative of Utrecht University that advises, promotes and stimulates citizen initiatives. In the first FOCI webinar, on 7 February 2022, prof. Tine De Moor told about CollectieveKracht, the new transdisciplinary and multistakeholder knowledge exchange platform for citizen collectives. The platform, to be launched on 11 February, was built by her research group, in partnership with an interdisciplinary team of researchers, civil servants and representatives of financial organizations. Through methods of extreme citizen science the platform stimulates citizen collectives to question their own functioning and to cooperate with researchers to explore their own challenges.
The diffusion of shared goods in consumer coalitions, Open seminar talk by Francesco Pasimeni
Dr. Francesco Pasimeni is an industrial engineer and he was the guest speaker of Research Team Social Enterprise and Institutions for Collective Action on 25 January. Dr. Pasimeni holds a PhD in Science and Technology Policy Studies from SPRU (University of Sussex). He presented parts of his thesis about Modelling Fractional Ownership in the Sharing Economy and more specifically about the diffusion of shared goods in consumer coalitions. Pasimeni explained the model he has built to calculate where there is a niche in the economy for shared goods, with the eventual goal to obtain more sustainable consumption patterns.
Affiliate researcher: Thomas Bauwens (Utrecht University)
We are happy to announce that dr. Thomas Bauwens, assistant professor at the Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development (Utrecht University) has aligned with the research group Social Enterprise and Institutions for Collective action as an affiliate researcher. His research focuses on economy, community enterprises and sustainability transitions. Welcome! See for more information his profile page.
CollectieveKracht Science lab
The CollectieveKracht knowledge platform for Dutch citizen collectives is really taking shape. On the morning of 17 January 2022 we had an inspiring meeting with more than 20 scientists who together form the Science lab of CollectieveKracht. Two of them, Fijnanda van Klingeren (RSM) and Arjen Buijs (WUR) presented tools that can help citizen collectives to increase their resilience and to create impact. We are looking forward to the official launch of CollectieveKracht – together with scientists, financiers, government’s representents, network organizations and the citizen collectives themselves – on 11 February.
Werkconferentie Coöperatieven maken de stad (Dutch due to scope)
Een keur van gasten kwam op maandag 17 januari 2022 vanaf 16.00 uur langs tijdens de online werkconferentie Coöperatieven maken de stad: van Marleen Stikker (Waag Society), Tine De Moor (RSM) en Rutger Groot Wassink (gemeente Amsterdam) tot vele vertegenwoordigers van buurtinitiatieven en burgercollectieven. Samen gingen ze in gesprek over de samenwerking tussen burgers en overheid, juridische aspecten en de kracht en betekenis van de coöperatieve beweging in allerlei sectoren. The recordings can be found here.
Social entrepreneurship in the Netherlands, socio-cultural, political and legal contexts: open seminar talk by Maarten Hogenstijn
Maarten Hogenstijn, senior researcher social entrepreneurship at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences was the guest speaker of research team Social Enterprise and Institutions for Collective Action on 11 January. He talked a about the contextual developments that affected the design of legal frameworks for Dutch social enterprises. In the Netherlands, social enterprises are usually considered as the social side of business. Increasingly researchers and civil servants recognize that social enterprises can also been seen as the entrepreneurial side of the social economy.
Tradeoff between size and identity among platform cooperatives: open seminar talk by Jovana Karanovic
Jovana Karanovic, Assistant Professor RSM/Founder Reshaping Work, was the guest speaker of research group Institutions for Collective Action on 21 December. She elucidated why researchers need to look into the reciprocal and volatile relationship between identity and strategy of platform cooperatives, understand how these organizations make a strategic tradeoff between size and distinctiveness.