Knowledge sharing as a central theme, collaboration as a starting point, and various examples as inspiration. That was our workshop at the NWO NERA Energy Symposium last Friday in a nutshell.
About the workshop
The symposium, organized for the 2nd time and held on 2nd February, covered the latest research in energy transition. The theme ‘Energy Transition – Collaborating for a Sustainable Future’ emphasized interdisciplinary solutions and provided a platform for knowledge sharing and networking between researchers and policymakers.
We had the pleasure of hosting an English-language workshop. During the workshop, we discussed several possible ways in which KIN could facilitate participants in accelerating the transition. Think of impulse grants, outreach grants, fellowships, hackathons, community building, or capacity building.
50 participants actively engaged in the co-creation workshop on support and came up with good ideas. A diverse group of representatives from universities, colleges, and other organizations discussed extensively and shared many insights.
The 3 main points
Knowledge sharing and exchange were central themes, providing us with much food for thought: can we assist with training, tools, and grants for engaging the target audience? How can we help with communicating with the target audience, with outreach, and with valorization activities?
Another central theme turned out to be collaboration, something that is also central to KIN. Participants talked a lot about enabling meetings and learning among like-minded individuals across organizational boundaries.
What was very valuable for us were the various examples mentioned. Think of high-intensity training with end-users, training programs on valorization, a buddy system with communication professionals, a learning community, grants focused on citizen science, and an ambassador program for transitions.
Next steps
We will, of course, take action on this. We are developing an initial grant focused on collaboration with practice partners, which we aim to open later this year. Within the short-term projects, we will work on grants and/or training focused on outreach and knowledge exchange in the field of transitions. We will also incorporate the other advice into the development of programming and activities. We always welcome ideas and suggestions, so please send them to us at contact@hetkin.nl!
