On 1 November, KIN celebrated its second anniversary! We would like to take a moment to reflect on the milestones of the past two years in a festive look back. Here’s to even more flags in 2026!
KIN was formally established two years ago. What was then just an ambition to do things differently in the climate transition has now come to life in a series of national and global programmes and projects, a dynamic Pact community, a selection of partners and a strong team.
We have built up a well-known name and a good reputation and reach more than 100,000 people through our channels, such as the KIN newsletter, the Pact Newsflash, our website and our LinkedIn channel. We are known as an innovative organisation that develops new ways of applying science and knowledge to the climate. This is recognised and acknowledged, for example, in this publication, in which the Rathenau Institute examines four intermediary organisations that stimulate the climate transition, including KIN. But also from the fact that ministries such as KGG, IenW and OCW, the relevant planning agencies, government knowledge institutions, advisory councils and other government-related bodies are increasingly turning to us when it comes to the climate transition.
Our ambition goes beyond a nice story. We want to get things done with initiatives and activities that support our mission to accelerate transitions together.
An anthology in bullet points:
- The reports on our first Crutzen workshop
- The report from our Purpose Accelerator
- Results from the first KIN work programme ACT, such as a handbook for policymakers on climate justice (coming soon) and the entertaining podcasts found at the bottom of the articles on the website.
- The development of our Global Transitions Programme and the programme in Mozambique
- The climate justice assessment framework and our vision on climate justice
- The make-atons we carried out on behalf of IenW and the resulting report (still under embargo)
- The almost completed report of the Social Impact Analysis for the NAS, in which a large group of scientists and practical experts developed a completely new method for mapping the social effects of future policy in advance, and applied this method directly to the adaptation pathways of the NAS.
- The collection of lessons linking opportunities for a healthy, climate-proof and nature-inclusive living environment, which can be found on the website of the province of Utrecht, among other places.
- The Veda platform, which has just been completed and which we intend to populate in the coming period, will be an important database for making ongoing climate transition research accessible.
Our new approach and subsidy forms:
- We developed our own Theory of Change
- We are working on a unique KIN approach to support truly transition-oriented research in and with practice
- The development of four new financing instruments, including two new grants that opened last week:
- New: Fund for More Sustainable Research (in collaboration with NWO), aimed at stimulating more sustainable research practices
- New: Transformative working methods and processes for climate transitions
- Our brand new Knowledge-in-Action grant, for which we are currently assessing applications for the first programme
- Our KIN Pact Network Grant, for which the call ran last spring and which currently supports 19 transdisciplinary networks in their climate mission
The many collaborations we have entered into, set up or initiated:
- An overview of the collaborations we have set up over the past two years, both within our Pact community working groups and beyond, can be found here
- And take a look at the many and varied activities undertaken by our Pact working groups, such as last Saturday’s Warming Up On Tour Kickoff – The KIN, which emerged from the Art and Science Working Group
- Expertise Centre NECTR, which was established under our direction and which is organising the first NECTR festival on 4 November
- The collaboration with the university climate centres
- The collaboration with the WKR and other climate advisory institutes, which is organising a symposium on Friday 12 December to mark the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement and which also gave rise to our programme (in development) on “the costs of inaction”
- Our collaboration with the creative sector, which is taking shape thanks to our Art and Science Working Group, the Call for Impossible Projects and our artist-in-residence vacancy. The KIN creatives network, which was created in response to the vacancy, now has more than 110 members and will undoubtedly bring us many new developments that cannot yet be predicted.
Together, we have learned a great deal and, above all, we want to continue to live up to what we say we do: learning, being action-oriented, delivering quality, daring to experiment, and (really) listening to feedback and making adjustments. In this, we benefit enormously from all the enthusiastic and highly inspiring professionals on our advisory boards (SAR, Global Transitions Programme Committee), our steering group, and our committees, who assist us with advice, wisdom, but also with support and helping to promote our mission.
Many thanks to everyone!