Research Workshop: First Edition!

On October 15, 2024, we hosted our first research workshop in Utrecht. This workshop is part of a regular REWIRE research workshop series. This series will serve as a dynamic platform for REWIRE researchers and collaborators to share their work, exchange ideas, and tackle broader questions surrounding sustainable agrifood transitions.

During the first session, the PhD candidates Brit Stegers (TUe) and Sophie van Doorm (UU) of the REWIRE project kicked off this workshop by presenting their work. Brit has walked us through her research proposal which she handed in during the summer. She will use a design science approach in three interrelated studies on collaboration practices, challenges, and needs. Finally, through co-creation, she wants to formulate solutions to enhance collaboration in emerging mission-oriented innovation ecosystems. Her case is the ‘Westland’, which is a regional greenhouse horticulture ecosystem in the west of the Netherlands.

Sophie has presented her plans for her first paper. In it, she wants to study unexpected commonalities between actors in the Dutch agrifood sector who are on opposing sides of the debate. She aims to do so by using the method of ‘Multi-Criteria Mapping’, during which actors evaluate different options. During the workshop, Sophie presented different types of options she could study and discussed them with the people present.

In addition to our internal researchers, PhD candidate Sabine de Graaff (UU), who is part of the INSTRANSIT project that deals with a topic similar to ours, presented her research into directionality embedded in Norwegian and Dutch agricultural policies. She does so by studying the post-war period, how policy problems were perceived during this time, which solutions were considered and decided upon, and which political-ideological values motivated these decisions.

Finally, we celebrated a recently published article that Matthijs Janssen (UU) wrote with Laurens Klerkx (WUR). They looked at how mission co-creation in different mission arenas is influenced by actors aiming to continue existing innovation pathways (exploitative innovation) and actors advocating alternative pathways (explorative innovation). They found that, even though the government wanted to try and engage explorative innovation actors, these actors felt excluded from the policy process. This demonstrated a trade-off between maximizing efficiency and speed versus obtaining novel perspectives and wide societal legitimacy.