Societal impact beyond the hype
On Thursday, November 24th, nearly 70 attendees shuffled into the Paviljoen Theatre to listen to the captivating and necessary keynote delivered by Davarian Baldwin (Trinity College). In his keynote, Baldwin walked audience members through the history of universities in the US vis a vis the communities that surround them. Baldwin was able to tie a lot of the phenomena visible in the US to the Dutch context.
After the keynote, Baldwin was joined on stage by Rosalba Icaza (ISS) and Willem Schinkel (EUR) as both professors delivered brief introductions to their position on impact vis a vis universities. The three professors thereafter engaged in a Q&A with audience members where attendees were able to pose questions.
After a short coffee break (where delicious treats were on offer), participants were separated into two parallel sessions. The first session, titled "Nice idea, complex practice: Obstacles and opportunities of coordinating impact-geared university initiatives that cross boundaries between institutes and disciplines”, was led by Amanda Brandellero, Beitske Boonstra, and Olaf van Vliet.
The second parallel session, titled “Influencers in impact: Which actors and theoretical underpinnings shape how we (can) think about impact?” was led by Derk Loorbach, Peter Scholten, and Liesbeth Noordegraaf-Eelens.
Attendees reconvened in the main plenary and summarized the main takeaways from their parallel sessions.
The event closed off with a borrel.