The Expertise Network Systemic Co-Design (ESC) has joined forces with the Systemic Design Association (SDA) and Pakhuis de Zwijger in organizing the RSD12 Amsterdam Hub from 10 to 12 October 2023. RSD12 is the annual global conference ‘Relating Systems thinking and Design’ organised by the SDA. The central RSD12 theme is ‘Emergence in Entanglement’, in Amsterdam we will host a three-day immersion in research, examples and stories about the upcoming field of navigating systemic change in transitions. In order to reduce the environmental impacts of RSD and make the event more accessible, a total of 12 local hubs will be hosted throughout October 2023 across the globe. These local hubs culminate in the final RSD conference in Georgetown USA, from October 18 to 20. More inspiration and less air miles. Come and join us on this journey and explore ways to navigate systemic change in societal transitions at the RSD12 Amsterdam Hub by ESC from October 10 to 12 in Amsterdam!
About the conference
Each day of the conference will be dedicated to two large societal transition challenges:
Tuesday, October 10, 2023
Focus on a Sustainable and Circular Society and A Healthy and Vital Citizenry – more information here.
Wednesday, October 11, 2023
Focus on A Secure and Just Digital Life and Educating in Times of Transitions – more information here.
Each system will have a similar agenda:
- One or two keynote speeches or activities
- Five parallel physical workshops in subgroups to learn and play
- Collective reflections/endings about what is emerging in entanglement
Thursday, October 12, 2023
Focus on Deepening and Reflection
The third day will be set up as a reflective walk in the woods with systemic reflection exercises to help you untangle some of the entanglements we have just co-designed together. A bus will take you from Amsterdam into the beautiful Dutch nature. During a walk of about three hours, there will be the opportunity to deepen new relationships and insights. The exercises that we will experience together can also be brought back by you to your own systems for further development, play and experimentation. Of course, there will also be a picnic with Dutch specialties such a hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles). Find the more details on Day 3 below.
Fore more information about the conference; please contact Frank Evers.
Fringe programme
Tuesday (October 10) and Wednesday night (October 11) there will be book presentations of new books from ESC partners Wina Smeenk, about Societal Co-Design and Bas van den Berg, about Regenerative Educating in Times of Transitions. The book presentations are free of charge but only a limited number of spots will be available. So make sure you register on time!
Please note: the fringe programmes, as well as the books, will be in Dutch.
The detailed programme will be updated in the upcoming weeks.
Find here more details on RSD12
Find here more details on ESC (in Dutch systemischcodesign.nl)
About ESC
Expertise Network Systemic Co-design (ESC) is an initiative by five universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands. The main goal of ESC is to collaboratively explore systemic co-design as a way of navigating transition challenges in interconnected systems that co-constitute wicked problems. And to develop interventions that address the root causes of these problems to redirect the systems we work with towards more healthy, life-affirming, and sustainable futures.
Ticket prices:
Day 1: €175,00
Day 2: €175,00
Day 1+2+3: €350,00
Click on ‘Make a reservation’ button to order your tickets.
About the keynote speakers
Prof. dr. Joyeeta Gupta is full professor of environment and development in the global south at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research of the University of Amsterdam and IHE Institute for Water Education in Delft. She is also the Faculty Professor on Sustainability and she leads the programme group on Governance and Inclusive Development.
Next to this she is co-chair of UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook-6 , which calls on decision makers to take immediate action to address pressing environmental issues to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals as well as other Internationally Agreed Environment Goals, such as the Paris Agreement. This year The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded her the Spinoza Prize, the highest distinction in Dutch science.
Dr. Chermaine Kwant is a nutritional expert on a mission. She empowers rebellious patients who improve their quality of life with nutrition. This summer, she completed her PhD on the impact of nutrition and pulmonary arterial hypertension, a rare and lethal disease. Chermaine, drawing from her personal experience, understands the vital role of nutrition in improving the quality of life for patients facing a disease. During her presentation, she vividly emphasizes the importance of nutrition in healthcare and shares insights gained from her PhD research and personal journey as a patient. She firmly believes that embracing a rebellious mindset is crucial in transforming healthcare, placing a renewed focus on the basics: nutrition.
Dr. Ana Vasques is an ecologist and a sustainability scientist who’s main focus is on the underlying processes that drive nature’s resilience and the role of human actions therein. She coordinates the major on Sustainability at EUC. Ana is the academic lead for transformative education at the Design, Impact, Transition Platform at EUR and the academic coordinator of the minor Sustainability Transitions. She is a member of the Community for the Innovation Capacity of Lecturers within the Community for Learning and Innovation and the EUC representative in the Liaison Network on Sustainability at Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR). She recently won EUC’s impact award for her contributions to education for sustainability at Erasmus University, empowering students for positive action. Before joining the EUR Ana worked as a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development (Utrecht University) in the development of an original dynamic model of post-fire plant succession. Ana did her PhD on Ecological Restoration in the Mediterranean at the University of Aveiro (Portugal) and her MSc in Ecosystems Management and Biodiversity Conservation at the same university.
Dr. Ginie Servant-Miklos is an educator, researcher and activist. Currently working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Clinical Psychology at the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences. She is the Chair and founder of the FairFight Foundation, a women’s empowerment charity, which she has led since 2015. Ginie also contributes to the Design Impact Transitions Platform through the Master’s Programme in Societal Transitions, and to the UNIC consortium of European Universities through the Master’s Programme in Superdiversity (SEOS). She was awarded a Senior Fellowship of the Comenius Network in 2022 for her project on Experimental Pedagogics. Previously, Servant-Miklos was a Senior Lecturer at Erasmus University College (2013-2022), a Visiting Professor at Tyumen University (2020-2022), and a Postdoctoral researcher at Aalborg University (2018-2020). Her expertise lies in environmental and social education, environmental psychology and experimental pedagogics.
Dr. Sanne Koevoets is senior lecturer in Intersectional Studies of Media and Culture and connected to DIT as researcher in Transformative Repair. Through her researchproject and as an educator, she aims to mobilize the (re)generative and transformative potential of mending as embodied practice and material metaphor for more just and sustainable ways of engaging with the world.
Dr. Domenico Dentoni is a Full Professor of Business, Resilience and Transformation at the Montpellier Business School (MBS). In active collaboration with local and global societal stakeholders and students, his research seeks to understand, explain and enact how processes of organizing support the capacity of systems to bounce back, adapt, and radically change in the face of grand challenges. To do so, he bridges organization and entrepreneurship theories with wicked problems and complex adaptive systems. In line with this research vision, Domenico teaches participatory systems dynamics and value network analysis for organizational and systemic change at executive and graduate levels.
Dr. Joyce Yee is Professor of Design and Social Innovation at Northumbria School of Design, UK. Joyce’s research explores how acts of designing enable, enhance and sustain impactful and equitable change in organisations. She co-founded the Designing Entangled Social Innovation in Asia-Pacific network (www.desiap.org) in 2015 with Dr Yoko Akama, RMIT in Australia, as a peer learning network for social innovation practitioners using design. She is passionate about design for social good and advocates for culturally diverse and locally relevant practices that challenge the dominant industrialized and western-centric models of design.
