Sandpit: Circular & Inclusive Cities

An online pitch & matchmaking session

30 June | 13:00-17:00

Note: Registration is closed. Please send an email to Kirsten Hollaender if you wish to participate last minute.

With this interactive online sandpit we aim to identify and match promising interdisciplinary research ideas that will shape the conditions to accelerate the transition to circular and inclusive cities. 

During the sandpit, selected researchers can pitch their ideas, followed by interactive feedback rounds in small groups to explore possible matches between people and participating partners.

Starting this fall, the working group Circular Society of the alliance between TU/e, WUR, UU and UMC Utrecht aims to fund approximately five staff members from institutions participating in the Alliance, to each spend 0.2 FTE research time (reduction of teaching obligations) on this challenge.

Research themes

The working group has identified four broad research themes. You can read more about this in the white paper on Circular and Inclusive Cities. Note: We are also open for ideas outside these four themes.

• Organising synergy between technological, societal, and organizational innovation to foster and accelerate the transition to circular societies.
• Integration of circular and inclusive initiatives.
• Investigating how social inequality affects circular and sustainable solutions and develop ways to mitigate undesirable inequality effects. 
• Making space for nature to drive circular, inclusive cities.

Who should attend?

• Individual researchers as well as interdisciplinary teams who want to pitch their innovative research idea. 
• Other staff and researchers who are interested in joining a research project. 
• Other professionals (academic, business, government) who are interested in learning from and giving feedback to enhance the ideas. 

Call for ideas & registration

We invite you to register and/or submit your innovative interdisciplinary research idea for this Pitch and Matchmaking Sandpit no later than 18 June 2021. Sign up now to reserve your digital seat.

Pitch conditions

You can indicate your interest to upon registration. Pitchers will be selected by the working group Circular Society and will receive guidelines for a five-minute pitch on June 23d.

• Be interdisciplinary (at least 2 disciplines) and have the potential to collaborate with two or more partner institutions.
• Connect to the hub Circular and Inclusive Cities as described in the white paper (but does not have to be limited to the four research themes).
• Potential to link with research agendas (NWA, KIA, KIC, etc.), topical societal challenges, Dutch/EU policy programmes and/or initiatives. 

More info

Any other questions or remarks? Mail to Kirsten Hollaender. This workshop is organized by the working group Circular Society, an initiative of the Alliance of Eindhoven University of Technology, Wageningen University & Research, Utrecht University, and the University Medical Centre Utrecht. We aim to do groundbreaking research relevant for practical solutions contributing to the circular society. 

This sandpit session is developed with support of Wageningen Dialogue, aiming at unraveling complex challenges through dialogue. For more information, you may contact Simone Ritzer, programme facilitator Wageningen Dialogue.