The call for Impossible Project Ideas aims to collect ‘unfundable gems’. We want to know what the“promising but impossible-to-fund ideas” in climate transition research are, in order to imagine new ways of funding.
Are you a climate ‘researcher’ in the broadest sense, and do you have experience with public funding and its limitations? Share your ideas for your “Impossible Project” with us in a 3 minute audio pitch. Five ideas will be selected and will each receive a small development budget of €500 to further shape the idea into a plan. This is an invitation to think boldly, explore uncertainty. By sharing your “Impossible Project” idea, you contribute to KIN’s “New ways of funding” workgroup, an experimental initiative that aims to accelerate transformative and transdisciplinary research collaborations by taking away current limitations and thresholds.
Why this Open call for Impossible Project ideas?
Mainstream funding models are largely premised on competition between research consortiums, designed to support specialisation, and assume that collaborations should function as projects, with well-defined plans from the onset. These features, while conducive to some forms of research, often constrain the ability to conduct more alternative, yet truly necessary, transformative work: transdisciplinary, collaborative, action-oriented, process- or place-based research – essential in addressing the climate crisis. Although many experimental ways of funding are being explored, many constraints often remain.
This call for ideas is designed top address the question:
What promising forms of collaborative and transformative climate research are considered impossible to fund because they fall outside the constraints and expectations of current funding systems?
Looking for ‘unfundable gems’:
This call for ideas aims to surface and explore brief descriptions of ‘unfundable gems’: the kinds of collaborative, imaginative, and transformative research that people would be excited to pursue, if the conditions permitted, but which are deemed impossible to fund. We’re looking for proposals that challenge or move beyond conventional notions of how knowledge is produced and applied – initiatives that would be feasible if resources were available, but today considered “too risky” due to current rules, institutional logics or expectations of the funding system. By opening space to allow otherwise invisible dream collaborations to surface, we aim to uncover the unmet desires, and promising alternatives in the funding landscape in order to explore these further within KIN (via work sessions and podcasts).
How does it work?
Five ‘unfundable gems’ will be selected to receive a small budget to support their development into more detailed plans. Selected participants are invited to take part in collaborative design workshops with funders, legal teams, researchers, and innovators to explore whether those ideas are indeed ‘unfundable’ and how they could evolve into prototypes for new funding pathways.
By showcasing diverse funding desires and sharing insights on opportunities for innovation, this call aims to grow a network of funding innovators that inspire, spark deeper conversations around alternative funding models, and expand their impact within KIN and other funders.
Who is this call for?
This call for ideas is aimed at climate ‘researchers’ in the broadest sense. Those who already have some experience with public funding and have (repeatedly) encountered limits in how they want to work. Being employed by a knowledge institute or university is not a requirement.
What do we offer
- Five selected submissions will each receive a small development budget of €500 to further shape their unfundable gems into a concise proposal. This is not intended to be a full grant application that will get funded, but rather a tool to probe constraints and reshape how we fund climate research. We currently envision it as a brief document (ca. four-pages text, visuals or another format you feel best captures the spirit of your idea). We will ask you to expand on a few key points such as your collaborative approach, relationships, process, methodology, quality, risk, and potential impact. However, we appreciate that process- and relation-based ideas might have differing needs. Therefore, the exact shape and content of the proposal will be discussed and tailored together with you in a call, if you are selected
- The proposals will form the basis of a co-creation workshop with peers, funders, and system actors, which will explore how to shape new funding pathways and instruments to open up space for these alternative ways of working.
What is an ‘unfundable gem’?
An ‘unfundable gem’ is research that is currently considered impossible to fund, not because it can’t be done, but because it doesn’t fit within the constraints of existing funding models. The idea is feasible if the resources were available, but blocked by systemic constraints.
Examples (non-exhaustive):
- collaborations with institutions or actors who are ‘ineligible’ for funding under current criteria
- research with extraordinary needs in order to develop a high-quality proposal
- novel research processes which don’t fit the expectations of reviewers
- research grounded in unrecognised or marginalised knowledge systems
- collaborations that cross institutional hierarchies, structures, or regulations (e.g. access or permit restrictions)
- speculative* collaborations with unusual outputs
- collaborations across structural divisions (e.g. of disciplines)
- research with negative precedents
- research challenged with the risk of novelty and the burden of being “the first”
- research subjects or timelinesthat move too quickly or too slowly for standard project frameworks
- research without a clear or measurable outcome or value
- paradigm-shifting or subversive research that is currently not considered acceptable (but may become so in the near future)
*Note: Speculative research is welcome, as long as it remains feasible to research and actionable, and does not venture into pure fantasy.
What to submit?
We would like to receive an audio recording of maximum 3 minutes, in which you give a short and motivated answer to these questions.
- Explain your idea: What kind of transformative research would you like to embark on to accelerate the transition to a climate-neutral and climate-resilient world?
Why do you want to pursue it in this way / why is it transformative / why does it matter?
Illustrate it: What kind of research questions could you answer by working in this way? - Explain your desired collaboration relations and your desired process: Who would you like to involve and how would the collaboration be organised? What kinds of relationships or roles would be essential to making it work?
Illustrate the process: How do you envision this research taking place? What is its timeline? - Explain the constraints: Why do you think this idea is currently impossible to fund? What specific constraints in the current system does it run up against? What kind of funding system would enable this?
Not a smooth talker? No worries. In that case, we would advise you todraft your idea and answers to these questions in written form first. And then if helpful or preferred you can make the recording by reading it out loud. That way you can be sure to include all important aspects and points that can clarify your idea in the best possible way.
How to submit?
- Make a voice recording of maximum 3 minutes explaining the points above in English or Dutch.
You can use an app on your phone, download a voice message from a chat, use open-source software on a computer (e.g. Audacity or VLC), …
We prefer files in MP3 or AAC (.m4a) format, but we also accept WAV or OGG.
Please keep the file size under 4 MB. To reduce file size, you can lower the bitrate with free tools like Audacity or VLC (e.g. 64 kbps is good enough). - Fill in the form with your name(s), contact information, professional background. You will be asked to describe who you are in one line.
- Upload the audio message to the form.[1]
Alternatively, if a voice memo is not possible or you are not comfortable with audio, you can also submit a brief paragraph of max 400 words.
Selection criteria
We will conduct a pre-selection round assessing the ideas on two main criteria:
- How promising is the idea?
We will consider what challenge or problem the idea addresses, the rationale for why it matters now, and the kind of public, social, or environmental value it aims to generate. We will also look closely at the envisioned relationships, roles, and processes to understand how the idea engages with complexity such as interactions across different sectors, and how it ensures that knowledge reaches those who are most directly involved in system transitions. - How ‘unfundable’ is the idea?
Here we will consider the reasoning behind why the idea is currently considered “impossible” to fund, and how it helps illuminate specific structural, institutional, or cultural constraints within today’s funding systems.
From the pool of positively evaluated ideas, we will curate a final selection of five proposals. This curation will aim to reflect a diverse range of systemic constraints, not simply the “best” ideas, but those that collectively offer the most learning potential for future funding tools.
What happens next?
Timeline of key dates and moments:
- 15 July — Deadline to submit your idea by 23:59 CEST (UTC+2)
- 9 September — Evaluation of submissions completed
- 10 September — You will be notified of the outcome
- Early September — Brief calls with selected applicants to discuss the proposal development
- 30 September — Deadline to submit a more detailed version of your idea
- 13 November (tbc) — Co-creation workshop with selected proposals and stakeholders
Who are we?
This experimental call is organised by the working group ‘New ways of funding’, a collaborative assignment carried out for KIN, consisting of Kornelia Dimitrova and Alex Szwaj (Foundation We Are), Jonas Torrens (Utrecht University), Mattijs Taanman (Erasmus University Rotterdam) and Stephi Holst (KIN). This group came together with the aim to spark a shift towards new ways of collaborating from a funding system perspective, starting where the current interest lies, and probing for new possibilities in an action-research and experimental manner together with relevant stakeholders. Through this, we contribute to KIN’s goals to accelerate transitions on a systemic level together, aiming to foster diversity and inclusion in funding and ultimately to set the preconditions needed to facilitate action for climate justice.
Rights, Terms and Conditions
Intellectual property rights
The intellectual property rights (authorship) of ideas and proposals submitted through the open call remain with the original submitters.
By participating in the open call, you give permission for Foundation We Are and the commissioning organization (including the Government of the Netherlands) to use, disseminate, publish, adapt, translate the submitted ideas and proposals in research, reports, communication materials, and related activities for the purposes related to this assignment and future initiatives connected to the development of new funding models.
The submitters retain full rights to further develop and use their ideas independently.
We are committed to treating your ideas with care and respect. We do not seek to claim any rights over content or research. No material will be published or publicly shared without the consent of the submitter. Our aim is to learn from the stories, perspectives, and pathways you outline, and use them as starting points for change, not to take credit for them.
Conflicts of interest
If any potential conflict of interest arises, we will address it transparently and in dialogue with you to ensure your contribution is handled fairly and respectfully.
What will we do with the ideas collected?
A selection of submitted ideas may be invited to share their story in a podcast episode produced for KIN and its network. If selected, we will reach out to discuss how your idea can be shared, including how the audio may be used. The aim is to showcase diverse funding desires, share insights into high-energy openings, grow a network of funding innovators, and amplify discussions around alternative funding models in order to increase impact within NWO.
Do you have any questions?
Contact Foundation We Are: opencall@foundationweare.org
