Projects

Dec

2025

Van Beleidsprogramma naar Wijkimpact – Zo sla je eindelijk de brug

De kloof tussen beleid en wijk is geen motivatieprobleem, maar een verbindingsprobleem.

Vanuit mijn werk aan het bouwen van sterke samenwerkingscommunities zie ik dit patroon telkens weer: beleid, professionals en wijkbewoners opereren in parallelle werelden. Allen met eigen belangen, logica en doelen. Ze snappen elkaar niet omdat ze letterlijk verschillende talen spreken.
Wat nodig is? Gemeenschappelijke grond: een “werkveldtaal” waarin beleidsmaker, buurtcoördinator en bewoner elkaar daadwerkelijk begrijpen. Niet door één perspectief op te leggen, maar door samen een gedeelde werkelijkheid te creëren.

Dát is waar SDGs (duurzame ontwikkelingsdoelen) en IDGs (innerlijke ontwikkelingsdoelen) hun waarde bewijzen: als brugbegrippen tussen werelden die concrete maatschappelijke doelen verbinden met de capaciteiten die nodig zijn om ze te realiseren.

In onze praktijkgids laten Johan Vermeulen en ik zien hóe je die verbinding via SDGs en IDGs smeedt.… Read more...

Oct

2025

The Dance of Mapping and Facilitation – Field Building at a Global Agricultural Conference

Aldo de Moor & Nancy White

When Nancy White and I stepped onto the stage at the KM Triversary Forum 2025, a global online conference on Knowledge Management for Development, this year focused on bridging the research-practice gap, we weren’t just presenting another conference paper. We were sharing a story eight years in the making, one that began in a conference hall in Lusaka, Zambia, and that challenges conventional wisdom about how we navigate complexity.

The Zambia Conference Experiment: Where It All Began

Picture this: January 2017, Lusaka, Zambia. Practitioners and researchers from across the globe gathered for the INGENAES Global Symposium and Learning Exchange—a USAID-funded initiative designed to bridge three seemingly disparate worlds: gender equity, nutrition, and agricultural extension services.… Read more...

Oct

2025

Hoe een Interactieve Kaart de Weg Wijst naar Vitale Wijken

Hoe overbrug je bij wijkontwikkeling de kloof tussen de leefwereld van bewoners en de systeemwereld van professionals? In de Maastrichtse wijk De Heeg hebben Johan Vermeulen van Bureau Credo en ik, in opdracht van Maastricht Vitale Stad, ideeën en initiatieven in de taal van de betrokkenen in kaart gebracht en deze gebruikt als inspirerende gespreksagenda. Zo helpen we deelnemers om samen kansrijke actierichtingen met draagvlak te vinden die werelden kunnen verbinden.

Zoals Johan schreef op LinkedIn:

Een wijk in beweging krijg je niet met beleidsnota’s, maar met mensen.

In de Maastrichtse wijk De Heeg ontdekten we hoe krachtig het is om eerst te kijken wat er al leeft.
Geen nieuwe plannen, maar een interactieve kaart – een visuele kennisbank – die bestaande initiatieven, ontmoetingsplekken en sportactiviteiten in beeld brengt.

Sep

2025

De kunstwaarde(n)-verbindingsmethode: van werkveldwaarden naar waarde voor het veld

Een aantal jaren geleden werkte ik samen met Geert van Boxtel aan Het Arrangeursproject, een initiatief van de Provincie Noord-Brabant om innovatie en publieksverbreding in de klassieke muzieksector te stimuleren. In plaats van top-down doelstellingen op te leggen aan projectpartners, begonnen we met het ophalen van waarden die de sector zélf belangrijk vond. Deze “werkveldwaarden” – van openheid en creativiteit tot co-creatie en diversiteit – werden de leidraad voor alle gesprekken met programmeurs, componisten, musici en ensembles.

Het resultaat? De Kunstwaarde(n)-verbindingsmethode ontstond, gebaseerd op de CommunitySensor-methodiek. Onze participatief-kwalitatieve analysemethode maakte het mogelijk om de impact van het Arrangeursproject te meten door de beleefde ervaringen van alle betrokkenen in elkaars perspectief te zetten en deze samen te bespreken. Door samen met de betrokkenen inzicht te krijgen in die waarden zoals ze werkenderweg in de verschillende deelprojecten vorm kregen, ontwikkelden we een inhoudelijk verrijkende manier om gezamenlijk de waarde van het project te bepalen.… Read more...

Feb

2025

The Epistemicide of USAID: A Call to Action for Global Knowledge Communities

Urgent call to action in the USAID and the new burning of the books in digital and ideological epistemicide. A call to action-article by Sarah Cummings, PhD (she, her), Nancy Wright White and Bruce Boyes on the epistemicide taking place through the gutting of USAID, including its invaluable knowledge resources:

“In summary, removal and destruction of USAID’s knowledge should be identified as epistemicide. It should be stopped. It violates the fundamental understanding that all knowledges and unheard voices must be included if we are to solve complex problems. Undermining this knowledge will lead to less effective development. It will bolster ignorance that will hurt many initiatives and approaches. We must examine these actions in the context of a wider epistemicide, including the purge of diversity and inclusion initiatives, ending access to critical health data, and the rewriting of science to exclude reference to gender.”

Jul

2023

Winning the OpenAI grant with Deliberation@Scale

So excited to be part of the innovative DeliberationAtScale consortium – winner of one of ten global openAI Democratic inputs to AI awards – that is going to help explore ways to make the incredible power of generative AI that has so suddenly been unleashed upon society into a force for the common good!

We’re thrilled to share that our team, DeliberationAtScale, consisting of NGOs, businesses, and local leaders in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, won #openai‘s grant – Democratic inputs to AI. We’re one of ten global teams to secure this grant. Our goal? Develop AI systems that work for everyone.

Read the full press release here: https://www.dembrane.com/blog/openai-grant-democratic-inputs

Shaping AI’s future is not easy but, we’re up to the task. We’re ready to take on the long haul and engage in fruitful talks about how this change affects ordinary people.

Jun

2020

New publication: Increasing the Collective Impact of Climate Action with Participatory Community Network Mapping

A. de Moor (2020). Increasing the Collective Impact of Climate Action with Participatory Community Network Mapping, Livingmaps Review, No.8.

[Download PDF]

Abstract:

We examine a case study in which one form of network mapping – participatory community network mapping – was used to visualize and help discover common collaborative ground between stakeholders in a Dutch multi-sectoral climate action coalition of the willing. After introducing the 2018 Dutch Klimaatstroom Zuid Climate Summit case, we discuss how the CommunitySensor methodology for participatory community network mapping can help discover collaborative common ground in such complex networks. We share how we applied CommunitySensor to the climate summit case. We end with a discussion on how such participatory mapping could support the process of common agenda setting towards collective impact.

Sep

2019

From Climate Action Confusion to Collaboration: Towards Common Agenda Setting

All over the world, organizations are gearing up to address the causes and effects of climate change. However, none of them can do this on their own, joining forces is of the essence.

The 2015 Paris Agreement was a major milestone in accelerating this process of global collaboration:

The Paris Agreement builds upon the Convention and for the first time brings all nations into a common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects, with enhanced support to assist developing countries to do so. As such, it charts a new course in the global climate effort.

Although the intentions in Paris were good, as we all know there is still monumental confusion and dithering everywhere about what exactly needs to be done, in what way, when, and by whom.… Read more...

Sep

2019

New publication: Co-Discovering Common Ground in a Collaborative Community: The BoostINNO Participatory Collaboration Mapping Case

A. de Moor (2019). Co-Discovering Common Ground in a Collaborative Community: The BoostINNO Participatory Collaboration Mapping Case. In Proceedings of C&T 2019, June 3–7, 2019, Vienna, Austria

Abstract:

Collaborative communities are learning communities aimed at accomplishing common goals within often complex collaboration ecosystems. Their development requires catalyzing the process of co-discovering collaborative common ground. BoostINNO was an EU networking project aimed at building a collaborative community in which ten major European cities who are leaders in social innovation shared knowledge lessons learnt. We show how the CommunitySensor participatory community network mapping methodology and the Kumu online network visualization tool were combined to support participatory collaboration mapping among the BoostINNO community members. Two experiments were conducted: (1) finding collaboration partners and (2) comparing social innovation lessons learnt on urban spaces developed by each of the cities.… Read more...

Mar

2019

Mapping the social innovation ecosystems around public libraries together: the Czech connection(s)

Public libraries are cornerstones of civil society. They form the “third places” where individual citizens meet and mingle, get informed, learn, as well as form and share opinions. Increasingly, however, public libraries are also seen as the meeting and co-working hubs of the many communities making up the rich fabric of urban society. Thus, public libraries are getting new, societal roles as city labs and social innovation catalysts.

The Tilburg Public Library is known for its groundbreaking library innovations, such as the recently opened LocHal, which is truly a “world-class urban living room for Tilburg in an iconic former locomotive shed of the Dutch National Railways”. More about that in a future post. Another one of its strategic innovations concerns the KnowledgeCloud, the “network in which persons, communities and organisations meet one another both online and offline to discuss current, societally relevant themes”.… Read more...

The Zambia Conference Experiment: Where It All Began

Topics