This study analyzes citizen brand ambassadors' motivations and the effects they perceived deriving from participation in a citizen-focused ambassador network which constituted one element of a city's destination brand strategy. The results of this study of Berlin's citizen ambassador program indicate that participating in an ambassador program resulted in perceived positive effects for ambassadors. One major finding is that few citizens engaged in the ambassador program due to feelings of commitment or civic pride, but rather as a means to enhance the reach and exposure of their individual projects. A further finding was that ambassadors did not voluntarily function as active message senders on an individual level. The study reveals new insight into the key factors of the decision-making process determining whether citizens engage or do not engage with ambassador programs.
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This study analyzes citizen brand ambassadors' motivations and the effects they perceived deriving from participation in a citizen-focused ambassador network which constituted one element of a city's destination brand strategy. The results of this study of Berlin's citizen ambassador program indicate that participating in an ambassador program resulted in perceived positive effects for ambassadors. One major finding is that few citizens engaged in the ambassador program due to feelings of commitment or civic pride, but rather as a means to enhance the reach and exposure of their individual projects. A further finding was that ambassadors did not voluntarily function as active message senders on an individual level. The study reveals new insight into the key factors of the decision-making process determining whether citizens engage or do not engage with ambassador programs.
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Health interventions often do not reach blue-collar workers. Citizen science engages target groups in the design and execution of health interventions, but has not yet been applied in an occupational setting. This preliminary study determines barriers and facilitators and feasible elements for citizen science to improve the health of blue-collar workers. The study was conducted in a terminal and construction company by performing semi-structured interviews and focus groups with employees, company management and experts. Interviews and focus groups were analyzed using thematic content analysis and the elements were pilot tested. Workers considered work pressure, work location and several personal factors as barriers for citizen science at the worksite, and (lack of) social support and (negative) social culture both as barriers and facilitators. Citizen science to improve health at the worksite may include three elements: (1) knowledge and skills, (2) social support and social culture, and (3) awareness about lifestyle behaviors. Strategies to implement these elements may be company specific. This study provides relevant indications on feasible elements and strategies for citizen science to improve health at the worksite. Further studies on the feasibility of citizen science in other settings, including a larger and more heterogeneous sample of blue-collar workers, are necessary.
Due to societal developments, like the introduction of the ‘civil society’, policy stimulating longer living at home and the separation of housing and care, the housing situation of older citizens is a relevant and pressing issue for housing-, governance- and care organizations. The current situation of living with care already benefits from technological advancement. The wide application of technology especially in care homes brings the emergence of a new source of information that becomes invaluable in order to understand how the smart urban environment affects the health of older people. The goal of this proposal is to develop an approach for designing smart neighborhoods, in order to assist and engage older adults living there. This approach will be applied to a neighborhood in Aalst-Waalre which will be developed into a living lab. The research will involve: (1) Insight into social-spatial factors underlying a smart neighborhood; (2) Identifying governance and organizational context; (3) Identifying needs and preferences of the (future) inhabitant; (4) Matching needs & preferences to potential socio-techno-spatial solutions. A mixed methods approach fusing quantitative and qualitative methods towards understanding the impacts of smart environment will be investigated. After 12 months, employing several concepts of urban computing, such as pattern recognition and predictive modelling , using the focus groups from the different organizations as well as primary end-users, and exploring how physiological data can be embedded in data-driven strategies for the enhancement of active ageing in this neighborhood will result in design solutions and strategies for a more care-friendly neighborhood.
Teachers have a crucial role in bringing about the extensive social changes that are needed in the building of a sustainable future. In the EduSTA project, we focus on sustainability competences of teachers. We strengthen the European dimension of teacher education via Digital Open Badges as means of performing, acknowledging, documenting, and transferring the competencies as micro-credentials. EduSTA starts by mapping the contextual possibilities and restrictions for transformative learning on sustainability and by operationalising skills. The development of competence-based learning modules and open digital badge-driven pathways will proceed hand in hand and will be realised as learning modules in the partnering Higher Education Institutes and badge applications open for all teachers in Europe.Societal Issue: Teachers’ capabilities to act as active facilitators of change in the ecological transition and to educate citizens and workforce to meet the future challenges is key to a profound transformation in the green transition.Teachers’ sustainability competences have been researched widely, but a gap remains between research and the teachers’ practise. There is a need to operationalise sustainability competences: to describe direct links with everyday tasks, such as curriculum development, pedagogical design, and assessment. This need calls for an urgent operationalisation of educators’ sustainability competences – to support the goals with sustainability actions and to transfer this understanding to their students.Benefit to society: EduSTA builds a community, “Academy of Educators for Sustainable Future”, and creates open digital badge-driven learning pathways for teachers’ sustainability competences supported by multimodal learning modules. The aim is to achieve close cooperation with training schools to actively engage in-service teachers.Our consortium is a catalyst for leading and empowering profound change in the present and for the future to educate teachers ready to meet the challenges and act as active change agents for sustainable future. Emphasizing teachers’ essential role as a part of the green transition also adds to the attractiveness of teachers’ work.
This PD project aims to gather new knowledge through artistic and participatory design research within neighbourhoods for possible ways of addressing and understanding the avoidance and numbness caused by feelings of vulnerability, discomfort and pain associated with eco-anxiety and chronic fear of environmental doom. The project will include artistic production and suitable forms of fieldwork. The objectives of the PD are to find answers to the practice problem of society which call for art that sensitises, makes aware and helps initiate behavioural change around the consequences of climate change. Rather than visualize future sea levels directly, it will seek to engage with climate change in a metaphorical and poetic way. Neither a doom nor an overly techno-optimistic scenario seem useful to understand the complexity of flood risk management or the dangers of flooding. By challenging both perspectives with artistic means, this research hopes to counter eco-anxiety and create a sense of open thought and susceptibility to new ideas, feelings and chains of thought. Animation and humour, are possible ingredients. The objective is to find and create multiple Dutch water stories, not just one. To achieve this, it is necessary to develop new methods for selecting and repurposing existing impactful stories and strong images. Citizens and students will be included to do so via fieldwork. In addition, archival materials will be used. Archives serve as a repository for memory recollection and reuse, selecting material from the audiovisual archive of the Institute of Sound & Vision will be a crucial part of the creative work which will include two films and accompanying music.
