In 2024, the Dutch Climate Research Initiative (KIN) partnered with the THRIVE Institute, an organisation specialised in generating impact and navigating societal complexity. The goal: to apply THRIVE’s proven Purpose Accelerator methodology to identify and learn from pilot projects and promising climate interventions that contribute to system-wide transitions toward climate neutrality.
By mapping what works, and what doesn’t, the programme offered valuable insights into enabling and limiting factors. These cases now serve as inspiration for other researchers and feed directly into the development of KIN’s own approach. In addition, they surface relevant questions for future programmes.
Knowledge brokers: learning by doing, doing by learning
As part of the programme, PhD candidates applied their academic expertise and simultaneously developed new skills to take on the role of knowledge broker. In this emerging role, they support organisations with cutting-edge insights, evidence-based strategies, and practical lessons from both science and society, helping to improve the effectiveness of impact-driven policy.
Each researcher dedicated four hours per week to the programme, combining structured training with real-world application. Along the way, they learned from leading experts in knowledge brokering, system transitions, and research valorisation—the responsibility to make scientific knowledge useful to society (source: NFU). This gave them the opportunity to work on urgent, complex societal challenges, build a solid evidence base, and take concrete steps that directly contribute to KIN’s future efforts.
Over the course of five months, the PhD researchers, alongside their own research projects, investigated pilots and interventions focused on climate neutrality and resilience. Their aim: to understand how scientific knowledge and societal frontrunners can best accelerate the climate transition. They identified best practices, structural barriers, and key success factors. The central question: what needs to be in place to ensure that knowledge from science, policy, and practice can be translated into real-world impact quickly and effectively?
Outcomes of the THRIVE Purpose Accelerator
For the participating researchers, THRIVE marked the start of their journey as knowledge brokers experts, rooted in academia and engaged in society. This first cohort delivered a practical framework to guide the selection of impactful pilots and climate interventions, as well as concrete strategic recommendations for KIN to strengthen its role in supporting systemic change. This framework can also serve as a starting point for future cohorts of knowledge brokers and help identify those projects with the greatest potential to drive national-level transitions.As they move forward in their careers, these researchers remain committed to using scientific insights to address complex societal challenges, turning knowledge into action.
