Monday, January 27, saw the kick-off of 'Heal the Healer,' a new project aimed at improving mental health in the music industry. Thanks to funding from Centre of Expertise Prevention in Health & Social Care, this project, which will last one year, can get underway. Led by Koos Zwaan, professor of Innovation in the Music Industry, a team of researchers, teachers, welfare professionals and professionals from the music industry is working on sustainable solutions to mental health challenges in this sector.

Great urgency
Working in the music industry is not only inspiring, it also comes with risks. According to international research, as many as 70% of those working in the industry struggle with mental health problems, ranging from burnout and anxiety disorders to depression. The cause? A combination of economic uncertainty, performance pressure and a work culture in which stress is often seen as inevitable.

Professor Koos Zwaan explains: “The music industry is a wonderful but also demanding environment. The fact that mental well-being is such a wide-ranging problem became clear to me when I drew up the for the pop sector. Different mental challenges were mentioned from each expertise. With Heal the Healer, we not only want to create awareness, but also develop practical tools and interventions to better support both students and workers. This project offers an opportunity to make a lasting impact on the sector.”

What does Heal the Healer entail?
Heal the Healer focuses on two main pillars:
 

1. Prevention: Increasing the mental resilience of individuals so they are more resilient to the challenges of the music industry.
2. Amplition: Improving working conditions by encouraging structural change in the industry.

These interventions are being developed in collaboration with students from three Inholland programs - Haarlem Conservatory of Music, Leisure & Events Management and Creative Business -  and together with mental health professionals and coaches. In addition, work field organizations, such as BAM! Popauteurs and Music Managers Forum NL (MMF), are actively involved in testing and implementing the solutions.
 

Kick-off: inspiration and collaboration
During the kick-off of Heal the Healer, all parties involved came together for the kick-off of the project. Besides exploring the objectives and research design, knowledge was shared. Professor of media studies Mark Deuze (UvA) was a guest and outlined the mental challenges within the creative sector. Inholland alumni Mandy Delaporte and Lucas Garnier shared insights from their thesis research on mental well-being in the dance and pop rock scene, respectively.

The ambition of Heal the Healer extends beyond the music industry. The knowledge and interventions gained can also be of value to other sectors within the cultural and creative industries.

“Fabricated is designed to give visitors insight into how digital technologies are affecting our society. Our goal is to make complex topics such as AI and misinformation understandable and tangible. With interactive games and experiences, the exhibition bridges the gap between abstract digital concepts and everyday reality. I hope that visitors to the exhibition will feel more confident and better equipped to participate in democracy,” said Susannah Montgomery, researcher at the Media, Technology & Society Research Group at ARC research center.

From the Netherlands to the United States
After touring the Netherlands and other European countries from May to July, fabricated was on view in September as the first exhibition in the Expo space during the opening of Inholland's new building on Pina Bauschplein in Amsterdam. After that, the exhibition was on view at prominent events such as the Society 5.0 Festival (Oct. 9-10) and DigiQuest (Nov. 21-22). In the meantime, fabricated took a three-week trip across the United States ahead of the presidential election. There it made stops such as The LOVE Building in Detroit (Oct. 21-24), The Ohio State University's Translational Data Analytics Institute (Oct. 29 to Nov. 5) and The STEAM Factory in Columbus (Nov. 8).

The exhibition also received rave reviews in the US: “From the moment I ‘met’ Alex, the AI news reader, I was sold. In our polarized society, we need more bridges like fabricated to help people better understand each other and their digital world,” said an American visitor.

Fabricated returns to Inholland Amsterdam
In the coming months, the research team will publish articles and reports on how residents of the United States and Europe understand important digital issues, such as misinformation, AI and content moderation. These insights, based on interviews and surveys conducted during the tour, provide a better picture of how societies deal with digital challenges.

Part of the exhibition will return to Inholland's Expo space in January as part of an exhibition on Digital Rights. With this, fabricated continues to contribute to the conversation about the role of technology in our society for the time being.

Listen to the interview with Susannah and Andy on Instagram during the exhibition of fabricated at The LOVE Building in Detroit.

Research group, living labs and expertise networks: the research center of the Creative Business faculty of Inholland University of Applied Sciences sits at the intersection of theory and practice. It is the place where research, education and practice come together. Recently, the research center received a new name: ARC. Applied Research x Creativity. What does that mean? What are living labs and research groups? And what can ARC mean for Creative Business teachers and students?

In the second episode of this podcast series, Roos Gerritsma, associate professor at the research center, lab-lead of the Urban Leisure & Tourism Lab and PD candidate, and Koos Zwaan, professor of innovation in the music industry and lab-lead of the International Music Industry Lab, answer these questions.

If you have questions or want to know more about opportunities to work with the research center? Feel free to contact the professors directly or email Hilda Bakmaz.

Roos Gerritsma and Donagh Horgan, lableads of the Urban Leisure & Tourism Lab in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, contributed to the newly released book Tourism Interventions: Making or Breaking Places. This book discusses ways to positively influence tourism. It provides students, researchers, and academics with new ideas on how to sustainably develop and manage tourism so that destinations can better withstand future challenges.

Roos and Donagh wrote Chapter 9 titled: ‘The Urban Leisure and Tourism Labs as Incubators for Sustainable Tourism Interventions: Sharing Insights from Educational Research Perspectives on Regenerative Placemaking in Amsterdam and Rotterdam.’ 

This chapter describes a case study in the Netherlands, where the first tourism living labs were established in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. These labs offer a unique environment for creating positive tourism interventions and involve a wide range of stakeholders. They encourage collaboration between the public, private, and community sectors, and view students as key partners. The chapter discusses the challenges and opportunities of the labs in their early years and showcases some of the most impactful ideas, such as the BMX-routes Zuidplein and the Inclusive Welcome Path. It emphasizes the importance of collaboration, experimentation, and continuous feedback for successful urban tourism interventions.

Andy Sanchez, researcher at the Media, Technology & Society research group and the Sustainable Media Lab, has been awarded the SIDN Pioneer grant. He receives this €10,000 grant for the project 'Fabricated: Anti-Misinformation Games for the 2024 European Parliamentary Elections'. With this project, Sanchez aims to prepare European residents for the elections, teaching them how to recognise fake news and misinformation through interactive games. Follow updates about this project on their Instagram.

Digital Literacy
The Sustainable Media Lab explores the role of technology in society. With elections in the EU, US, India, and elsewhere, more people will vote in 2024 than any other year in human history. Concurrently, these voters are encountering political information online, in an environment increasingly driven by algorithms. Almost half of European residents lack basic digital skills. They may not be able to distinguish fake news from facts. This explains the urgent need for digital literacy and electoral resilience, so that users can make informed choices.

According to figures from the Sociaal Cultureel Planbureau, almost half of Dutch residents are concerned about misinformation online. In addition, deepfakes of Frans Timmermans, among other politicians, appeared in 2023 a day before the elections.Fabricated is an exhibition of games and will give residents a deeper understanding of their digital environment. It also helps them to critically engage with political (mis)information they encounter in the future.

Exhibition
This exhibition prepares voters for the elections and promotes digital literacy. You can visit the exhibition at the following locations:

• 5 May and 13-17 May: The Hague (Liberation Festival and city hall atrium)
• 20-24 May: Brussels (libraries and CPDP conference)
• 27-29 May: Berlin (re:publica 24 festival)
• 2-6 June: Amsterdam (libraries)

How do people from bi-cultural backgrounds view divorce and separation, and what information needs do they have in this situation? In what ways can the central government improve and expand its current range of information on this topic so that it better meets those information needs? Commissioned by the Department of Public and Communication (DPC) of the Ministry of General Affairs, the Research group Inclusion and the Creative Industries researched these questions in a design project, involving experts, people from bi-cultural backgrounds, self-help organizations and others. The goal of this design project was to gain more insight into the perspectives and information needs of people with a bi-cultural background when it comes to divorce and separation. And to come up with solutions that better support all those involved around divorce and separation.

The research team included project leader Ouafila Bejja-Essayah, Professor Joke Hermes and Mirthe van den Hee. Professor of Design Thinking Guido Stompff was also involved.

Saskia Soekhoe-Datadin, Strategic Advisor on Inclusion at the Department of Public and Communication (DPC) of the Ministry of General Affairs: "The design project yielded a wealth of insights about the different context of marrying, divorcing and separating and the perceptions about this among people from bi-cultural backgrounds. It also examined the influence of informal and formal helpers. The neutral role of the Inholland researchers during the co-creation session was crucial, among other things as a link between the system world of the government and the living world of those involved. The co-creation session also prevented unconscious assumptions from playing a role among creators of the information offered by the central government for people from bi-cultural backgrounds about divorce and separation."

Read more 

The Leisure & Tourism Lab (ULTL), with locations in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, has been accepted as a member of the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL). This makes them the first lab focused on tourism and leisure to be admitted to this network, a remarkable achievement! ENoLL is the international, non-profit, independent association of benchmarked Living Labs. Their objective is to foster the global development of Living Labs as open innovation ecosystems based on co-creation and cross border & cross-sectoral collaboration. In their assessment of the ULTL, ENoLL says: “ULTL shows a strong and inclusive governance model, engaging a wide range of stakeholders effectively. Also, a solid track record in running living lab projects, with a focus on urban leisure and tourism is presented and it demonstrates as well a clear interest in regional and international innovation. Their considerable experience in living lab operations is supported by compelling proof.

Peggy van Schijndel, managing director of the Creative Business Research Center: “This accreditation by ENoLL is a wonderful recognition and appreciation by external partners and experts for the way of working we have built up over the years: not just doing quick research, but making long-term contributions to an area and an issue. Not thinking in quick fixes for complex problems, but developing interventions that increase the involvement of all stakeholders and their understanding of the complexity. This is also how we learn about methods of co-creation and participation. Last week, two more groups of young professionals started in these labs, bringing in knowledge from their discipline, from experience in the field, from their personal experience as visitors or tourists - and very valuable: often also local knowledge as residents.”

We are currently facing several crises that deal with the disturbed balance between humanity and the earth. To change this, no solutions are yet available and looking for them alone is insufficient to restore the balance. The process of how to get there will also have to change, with not only the interests of people at heart. Our relationship with nature must change.  But how do we do that?      

Symbiocene   
The term symbiocene was introduced by author and environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht¹. The term is derived from the word symbiosis, which in biology stands for the long-term coexistence of two or more organisms of different species. In the symbiocene, relationships and connection of all living things are central. Albrecht's premise is that all living things such as humans, animals, plants, bacteria, fungi, microorganisms, form an integrally connected whole. Man is not at the top of the pyramid, but is an equal part. That gives humans a more humble place. That helps to deal with climate issues differently.   

But what does it mean, living in the symbiocene?   

Summer Research School  
From June 28 to 30, 2023, the Summer research school Symbiocene took place on Zeeburger Island, a collaboration between the Inholland Sluislab and the Centre of Expertise for Creative Innovation (CoECI) initiated by An Kramer. An is a researcher at the Inholland Research group Design Thinking and also the linking pin between the Creative Business Research Center and CoECI. During the Summer research school, thirty participants examined together the question: What does the Symbiocene mean on the Zeeburger Island?   

Co-research   
Ten students from various programs, ten residents and ten researchers worked together in small diverse teams. Precisely the varied composition made that everyone's individuality was in demand. Where one person knew everything about edible plants, another knew about sound engineering, and a third person just had two right hands and could turn an idea into something tangible.  

No fixed goals, but results  
Precisely because of the open approach of the research question, the participants were able to choose their own fascination, such as protecting nature, or, on the contrary, speculatively seek how nature would make devices to communicate with us humans.   

Making and sharing art as a research outcome  
The assignment to the participants was not entirely open-ended. They were asked to work toward an experience circuit: a route across Zeeburger Island offering guests an experience, based on their researched fascination. In between, the teams shared their ideas and showed prototypes they made. The very act of making things together produced different end results.  

Documentary and book  
The search for symbiosis on Zeeburger Island has been recorded in a documentary and a booklet. For inspiration for everyone who, on a small or larger scale, is looking for ways to connect with nature in an essentially different way.  The documentary follows one of the teams. You see how they search together for what the symbiocene could mean and eventually arrive at a surprising idea and result. You also see the joint assignments, and the final experience circuit.  

In the booklet you will read the background of the concept of the symbiocene, and find the different results of the teams and the background of their search. In addition, you will get to know the participants through small nature portraits. 

Follow-up event - Make Place! 
There will be a follow-up to the Symbiocene Summer research school on Sunday 7 April, including a keynote by Glenn Albrecht, the founder of Symbiocene, live from Australia! More information about the programme will follow soon. You can already register via an.kramer@inholland.nl 

Pieter Breek, researcher at the Inclusion in the Creative Industries research group, and lab coordinator at the International Music Industry lab, has won an Emerald Literati Award for his paper titled "Street-level bureaucrats: tensions and challenges in online placemaking" , published in the Journal of Place Management and Development. The paper shows the influence of social media on placemaking: activities aimed at the physical and social environment of a neighborhood.

The article is part of Pieter Breek's thesis and is currently being reviewed by the PhD committee. In his thesis, he examines the notion that social media automatically contributes to inclusive and democratic placemaking with a critical eye. This thesis reveals the obstacles and tensions associated with social media, such as Facebook and WhatsApp, in conjunction with placemaking. It also provides valuable insights to professionals in the public domain for meaningful neighborhood development.

Read Pieter Breek's article on the impact of social media on placemaking.

According to Frank Radstake of ANVR, developing a new sustainability ambition for the travel sector is important and urgent: “There is a political and social reality that we as travel companies have to deal with such as the Paris Climate Agreement, the blending obligations for airlines in 2030 and the UNWTO Glasgow Declaration. In addition, there are also moral and ethical reasons why we will have to work on this. Above all, there is also an economic necessity; if we want to continue to have a 'license to operate' in the future, we will have to undergo a transformation to a sector where intrinsic sustainability, equality and inclusiveness are the norm.”

Read the entire news release here.

Wina Smeenk, Professor of Societal Impact Design, has published her new book The Co-design Canvas. The Co-Design Canvas is a proven, practical and user-friendly tool to start openly and transparently, plan, execute and evaluate collaborations around societal challenges with different stakeholders. Understanding and addressing these challenges is difficult because no single stakeholder or organization is solely responsible. Everything is interconnected and constantly changing, resulting in challenges being neglected and stakeholders being unable or unwilling to make important decisions.

“Co-design is inherently collaborative. To achieve societal impact, all stakeholders are needed. Only when all different perspectives are represented can you achieve meaningful design opportunities," says Wina Smeenk. "If we want ideas from socially engaged residents to take effect, it can only be done through good collaboration with other stakeholders.”

The Co-Design Canvas is a tool for governments, citizens, businesses, nonprofit organizations, knowledge institutions and other stakeholders to communicate and collaborate transparently. It clarifies and discusses differences in interests, knowledge, experience and power relations, dwells on desired positive impact and concrete results from the beginning, and ensures that everyone’s voice is truly heard.

The Canvas consists of eight cards about co-design decisions that can be placed together. "Together with the stakeholders you navigate through the cards flexibly”, Wina explains. "You can take different routes through the Canvas. Sometimes you have to backtrack. It's revisiting decisions and thinking ahead." But crucial above all is that everyone has a say, Wina believes. "If people can really bring in their interests and feel that their interests are served by the portfolio of collaborative projects, then you see people put their shoulders to it and give it all their enthusiasm. Then something beautiful is created."

The Co-Design Canvas is available through BIS publishers.

Book presentation

On Tuesday, October 10, the festive presentation of the book The Co-Design Canvas will take place at Pakhuis de Zwijger. You are cordially invited to attend.

WITH CONTRIBUTIONS OF
Agnes Willenborg, Claudia Mayer and Koen van Turnhout

PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Date: 10 October 2023
Time: 19:00h - 21:30h
Location: Pakhuis de Zwijger, Piet Heinkade 179, Amsterdam

REGISTER
Tickets for this event are available free of charge through Pakhuis de Zwijger: https://dezwijger.nl/programma/the-co-design-canvas

On September 15 and 16, Guido Stompff, professor in Design Thinking, and Roos Gerritsma, associate professor in Societal Impact Design, were present at the SMARTDEST final conference in Barcelona, on behalf of the entire Inholland team that has been working on the Amsterdam case for this EU H2020 project for the past 3.5 years. Also on the team were our Creative Business Research Center colleagues Swen Waterreus, Ko Koens, Donagh Horgan and Ellen Bulthuis. 

On Friday, September 15, Roos presented the work that zooms in on insights gained around the unclear field of who all is (not) involved in developing new tourism policy. On the basis of almost 30 interviews with various stakeholders, it became evident that there is no clear picture about this and that this once again indicates the complexity of shaping such a policy. The obvious way to do this in the Netherlands is through participatory methods, but participants in such processes increasingly fail to see the point. ‘Cuckoo-clock participation’, in which a party comes to collect or bring information once, is not helpful either, but it is common. Congressmen from cities like Vienna, Lisbon, Naples and Barcelona recognized this. One of the questions we continue to ask from our Research Center is: how then? Can our Urban Leisure & Tourism Labs in Amsterdam and Rotterdam change this? Three policy makers from the City of Amsterdam also traveled with us; we will explore these questions with them in the coming years. 

On Saturday, Guido was the moderator of the public debate that was led by him around four central themes. Representatives from various backgrounds were invited, ranging from activists, scientists and journalists to the hotel industry, and managing director Maya Janssen participated from amsterdam&partners. Among other things, she explained that amsterdam&partners focuses on the common interest in helping to shape the city in which we want to live, work and recreate. These were fascinating conversations, during which we realized once again that the more southern countries seem to focus more explicitly on the political arena and the importance of the ‘urban commons’. These were fascinating conversations, once again realizing that the more southern countries seem to be focusing more explicitly on the political arena and the importance of the 'urban commons' (shared facilities in a city, such as infrastructure, hospitals, parks, etc.). 

European cities are changing rapidly and increasingly becoming a 'mobility hub' of a mix of temporary users (from expat to exchange student, from resident to tourist), with all the consequences that this entails. This phenomenon will also remain on the research agenda for colleagues in the New Urban Tourism research group in the coming years. 

In the coming weeks, all research data will be collected from all cities, you can find more information via this link: www.smartdest.eu

Even during the quiet summer months, the international media knew where to find professor New Urban Tourism Ko Koens. He was interviewed by The New York Times about the intention of the Amsterdam city council to no longer allow cruise ships to moor in the city center, at the Passenger Terminal Amsterdam right next to Central Station. This is to deal with the pollution and the large number of tourists brought by the more than one hundred cruise ships that visit Amsterdam every year.

And nonprofit online magazine Reasons to be Cheerful also wanted to hear Ko's views in an article about Barcelona's strategy to combat over tourism.

The New York Times: “Party time is over”
Ko Koens says in the article:

Reasons to be cheerful: “Barcelona’s bold strategy”

The article includes the following quotes from Ko:

The lectors’ platform, Sustainable Urban Tourism, has been granted a subsidy of €100,000 by the SIA. Tasked with researching how to develop forms of tourism that will contribute to a more sustainable urban living environment, this platform has united researchers from twelve Dutch knowledge institutions. Based on a joint research and innovation agenda, they are working together in conjunction with local, as well as national and international, partners. 

Unique transdisciplinary collaboration 
At the moment, the Sustainable Urban Tourism lectors’ platform comprises 16 professors and researchers from 12 knowledge institutions*. These participants come from a variety of academic backgrounds, including tourism, geography, business innovation, design, psychology, architecture, marketing and the creative industry. The diversity they all bring is key to acquiring a better understanding of urban tourism, particularly now that it has become an increasingly integral part of contemporary cities. 

Tourism as more than just an ecosystem 
Transdisciplinary collaboration between different educational platforms makes it possible to analyse tourism as a social phenomenon, as opposed to just an economic sector. Adopting such a perspective is both innovative and essential in addressing the question of how ambitious visions for the future of tourism can be translated into real-world change. The theme of sustainable urban tourism, as well as regenerative tourism, is in line with the wider social development that now accompanies urban tourism. Cities, national tourism organisations and the European Commission are currently united in the way they perceive a future in which the tourism ecosystem will transition to a position that will make a much broader contribution to inclusive growth and prosperity. The lectors’ platform intends to fuel this transition by using joint research and design to place more emphasis on how it will all be realised. ‘The tourism ecosystem is becoming increasingly complex,’ insists Karoline Wiegerink, Professor City Hospitality Hotelschool The Hague. ‘It demands visible value creation for a wide range of stakeholders. And not just tourists, but residents and entrepreneurs in particular.’ 

Joint research and innovation agenda 
The aim of the platform is to collaborate with local, national and international partners on the basis of a joint research and innovation agenda and then learn how tourism can be used to improve places and the local way of life. These partners include municipalities, provincial authorities, destination management organisations (DMOs), museums, hotels, the Netherlands Bureau for Tourism & Conventions (NBTC) and other, international, partners. To maximise its social impact, the platform has joined forces with the Centre of Expertise Leisure, Tourism & Hospitality (CELTH), whose focus is on increasing knowledge and making the broader leisure economy more sustainable. ‘The knowledge and insights that are being developed by the lectors’ platform are necessary to help increase the positive impact the hospitality industry has in cities,’ says Menno Stokman, director of CELTH. ‘This will help realise the objectives of the broader Agenda-Conscious Destinations and Perspective 2030 Destination Netherlands.’ 

* Participating knowledge institutions: Inholland University of Applied Sciences (lead), Breda University of Applied Sciences, Hotelschool The Hague, NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, The Hague University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Saxion University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht University, Wageningen University, Erasmus University, Eindhoven University of Technology