Digital services are becoming the default way to access public information, pursue an education, get healthcare, and engage in civic life. Yet for millions of people, these services remain frustrating to use or completely inaccessible. Legal frameworks such as the European Accessibility Act (EAA) and …

How do citizens, designers, policymakers, and local entrepreneurs actually work together in ways that are inclusive, sustainable, and effective? Collaboration in urban innovation is often treated as a matter of method or structure, but what happens when timelines clash, trust falters, or understanding …

To achieve national climate ambitions, accelerating the energy and circularity transitions is essential. The challenge lies in building response capacity within organisations, municipalities and the education sector to shape responsible, future-oriented practices that can drive energy and circularity …

Neighbourhood as a Biotope (Wijk als Biotoop - WaB) focuses on enhancing biodiversity in urban areas by fostering collaboration between people, nature, and technology. The project brings together 15 partners, including municipalities, nature foundations, technology companies, and diverse groups of residents, …

In the face of increasingly complex societal challenges, the field of social design is being called upon to deepen its ability to create long-term, systemic impact. This project, conducted with five experienced social designers and one workshop in our ESConference in 2025, explored how systems thinking, …

Future Proof Labs (FPL) was a four-year research project funded by CLICKNL. It was fundamentally oriented toward co-design in contexts of societal transition. The project brought together academic researchers, practitioners, and a broad network of social design bureaus to collaboratively develop and …

Over the past ten years, the ecosystem concept has been used to frame innovation and transition endeavours undertaken by multi-actor groups. Systemic design initiatives are broadly engaging with ecosystems. The concept and phenomenon have been central in theory as well as practice, though remain contested …

The Fab 25 research papers stream includes original scholarly writing from researchers studying the Fab Lab movement, its ambitions and its impact from a wide range of disciplines, including computer science, engineering, science and technology studies, business and management, education, urban studies, …

This paper explores the integration of Edubadges, a form of microcredentials, within a constructionist learning environment at a higher education maker lab in the Netherlands. It examines the theoretical tension between constructionism’s emphasis on open-ended exploration and microcredentials’ focus …

Organizations and enterprises search for ways to exploit the vast amount of data that is produced by citizens, sensors, devices and administrative processes. Capitalizing on the produced data should be done responsibly by preventing, mitigating and managing undesired side effects such as violation of …