ESConference ESCape towards Impact

DAY 1 – ESCONFERENCE

09:00–09:30 · Walk-in
Pakhuis de Zwijger (Foyer & Entrance)

09:35 · Welcome and Introduction
Dymphie Braun (Main Hall)

Keynotes & Stories from Practice

09:45 · SCD Practice: Digital Inclusion by Design (ESCollab)
Tomasz Jaskiewicz (Professor of Civic Prototyping, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences), Nino Basilashvili, Kristel Thieme (Founder & CEO, New Future Lab)
Digital accessibility and inclusion can only be sustainably embedded when approached as a systemic co-design challenge rather than a checklist. Through the project Digital Inclusion by Design, the speakers show that real progress requires uncovering structural blind spots, sharing responsibility across disciplines, and creating spaces where lived experience, regulation, design practice, and institutional constraints can productively intersect.

10:05 · Weaving ESC and Systemic Co-Design
Wina Smeenk (Chair of ESC; Professor of Societal Impact Design, Inholland University of Applied Sciences)
Co-design has become a widely used concept — but what does it mean to make it systemic? Systemic Co-Design emphasizes relational collaboration in a generative and imaginative way. In this keynote, Wina explores what a systemic co-design approach can contribute to addressing societal challenges and supporting transitions, and how ESC has developed and deepened this way of working over recent years.

10:30 · Q&A and Book Presentation

10:45 · Break
Foyer

11:15 · Story from SCD Practice: Polarisation & the Silent Middle (ESCall)
Erwin Elling, Minke van Tol & Jens Gijbels (Fundamentals Academy). Susan de Vries (TheRevolution).
Polarisation often pushes us into “us versus them” thinking, leaving little room for nuance or doubt. How can design help reopen that space? This talk introduces The Silent Middle, a practice-based tool that creates room for constructive dialogue beyond extremes. The speakers explore how designers and communities can co-create contexts where ambiguity is allowed, perspectives can shift, and something genuinely new can emerge.

11:35 · Systemic Experiences in Personal Health Care
Caroline Hummels (Professor of Design and Theory for Transforming Practices, TU Eindhoven; Member of the ESC Expert Council)
Healthcare is undergoing major transitions. How can design bridge the gap between individual experiences and complex systemic realities? In this keynote, Caroline draws on fifteen years of research into designing for healthcare transformation and reflects on her own recent experience as a patient. She shows how Systemic Experiences can inspire new propositions, methods, and more aligned futures in personal healthcare.

11:55 · Interactive Discussion & Q&A
Dymphie Braun (Main Hall)

12:20–13:15 · Lunch break
Foyer

Afternoon Keynotes

13:20 · Ecosystem Innovation – Systems Thinking & Systems Doing
Joeri van den Steenhoven (Executive Board Member, Leiden University of Applied Sciences)
Mission-driven ecosystems do not emerge by themselves. What does it take to grow, evolve, and guide ecosystems — and to realise genuine system change? In this keynote, Joeri reflects on adaptive leadership based on his experience building innovation ecosystems in the Netherlands and Canada. He explores how transition spaces can be sustained, which roles people play within them, and why systems thinking must be complemented by systems doing.

13:45 · Design for Good – Global Impact Stories
Cecilia Brenner (Managing Director, Design for Good)
Global challenges demand collective action. In this talk, Cecilia shares impact stories from Design for Good, a radical global action collective where designers co-design open-source solutions for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). She shows how they tackle one challenge at a time to shift entire systems — and what it means to design not only for people, but for all life.

14:10 · Start for Future – Ecosystems that Enable Transitions
Klaus Sailer (CEO, Start for Future Cooperative; Professor of Entrepreneurship, Hochschule München)
Systemic innovation emerges when diverse actors dare to collaborate across boundaries. In this keynote, Klaus opens up the international Start for Future ecosystem. He shows how universities, startups, and public organisations across more than thirty countries co-create pathways for system innovation — and what this teaches us about enabling transitions at scale.

15:00–16:30 · Workshops

The Making of Knowledge Products (Main Hall)
Koen van Turnhout, Wina Smeenk, Daan Andriessen & Miriam Losse
Research only has impact when its outcomes are actually used in practice — but how do you design tools that professionals genuinely want to work with? In this workshop, the authors of Knowledge Products from Practice-Based Research explore how research insights can be translated into meaningful and applicable knowledge products, with form and content designed together from the start.

Let Her In Network & SFF (IJ Hall)
Lena Korzhykova & Pavlina Vujovic
From project collaboration to European networks built to last. Lasting networks are built when they are designed by and with their members. The canvas used in this workshop is an instrument that helps transition from fragmented cooperation to mission-driven interconnectivity..

Getting Started with Youth Care: A National Systemic Design Approach (Workspace)
Christine de Lille (Design Agency Shoshin)
Design agency Shoshin helped shape the solid program ‘Team Approach to Waiting Times’, developing a thorough systemic design approach and portfolio of solutions. In this workshop, lessons from this model project will be translated to other contexts.

ESC Expo: Dialogue with Doers (Meeting Room – open walk-in)
ESC network designers and researchers
Enter an interactive space where you can explore tools, maps, methods, and knowledge products from across the ESC network. Browse, test, and discuss prototypes and new publications directly with the designers and researchers behind them.

ESMEE Quarterly (Studio – closed session)
ESMEE Consortium

SINO Quarterly (Expo – closed session)
SINO Consortium – systemic work in elderly care
Note: the SINO project starts its workshop directly after lunch.

16:35 · Plenary Closing
Main Hall

19:00 · Evening Programme

Book Launch: Knowledge Products from Practice-Based Research
Koen van Turnhout, Wina Smeenk, Daan Andriessen & Miriam Losse
This book shows how practice-based researchers can design knowledge products — from card sets and games to podcasts and guidelines — to ensure research insights are actually applied in practice. Developed in co-creation with more than forty researchers, it offers concrete guidance for integrating knowledge sharing from the very start of research projects, where both content and form matter.

Day 2 – ESConference

The second day of the conference is fully dedicated to interaction, exchange, and cross-pollination. Building on the insights gathered on Day 1 and looking ahead to the outcomes of Day 3, this day is designed as a swarming choreography. We move through the city of Amsterdam, visiting six partner locations — each functioning as a “flower” filled with inspiration, insight, and dialogue.

You will be welcomed into our bee hive at Baggerbeest Amsterdam by design researcher Sietske Klooster. Through an interactive keynote by researcher Manon Joosten and creative professional Nanda Deen, you will be energized and prepared for the cross-pollination missions ahead. After the Bee-Brief, we swarm out into the city. You choose which partner location or project to visit, guided by your interests, motivations, or insights from Day 1.

Programme – Day 2

09:00
Walk-in at Baggerbeest Amsterdam

09:30
Welcome to the ESC Bee Hive

10:00
Introduction + Bee-Brief

11:00 – 12:00
Swarm Out

12:00 – 14:00
Exchange at partner locations + lunch

Partner locations include:

• Regenerative Tourism – Urban Leisure & Tourism Lab (ULT Lab)
• Systemic work in elderly care – Design agency Morgenmakers (SINO)
• Mechanical Twin, organisation and friction – Systemic modelling and visual design at Contour
• ESC in the Red Light District
• SAIL
• Municipality of Amsterdam at the Marineterrein

14:00 – 15:00
Swarm Back

15:00
Grand Cross-Pollination

16:00
Conclusion & Drinks

Day 3 – ESConference

09:00 · Walk-in
Pakhuis de Zwijger (Foyer & Entrance )

9:30 · Welcome and introduction
Dymphie Braun (Main Hall)

Keynotes

9:50 · Intuition and Systemic Working in Education
Arthur Kok (lector Transforming the Economy)

10:15 · Interactive: Systemic Co-Design in Education 
Arthur Kok (lector Transforming the Economy), met Liliya Terzieva (lector Designing Value Networks), Guido Stompff (lector Design Thinking), Jasper Huitink (coördinator Co-Design Studio), Lenny van Onselen (UAS Utrecht), Sybe Stuij (teacher UAS Rotterdam).
Exploration on how Systemic Co-Design fits into higher education, together with lecturers from various colleges and programs. The session focuses on both the richness this approach offers and the challenges of integrating this way of working and thinking into educational practice.

10:50 · Book presentation + Future ESCuela
Lenny van Onselen, Peggy van Schijndel & Mieke Koeslag Kreunen (Main Hall)
Presentation of the ESCuela-book as a part of the trilogy with ESCall and ESCollab.

11:10 · Break
(Foyer)

11:30 · Cross-Boundary Learning Environments as Catalysts for Local Learning Ecosystems
Ilya Zitter (lector Beroepsonderwijs, UAS Utrecht)
What happens when learning environments transcend the boundaries of education, practice, and society? In this keynote, Ilya opens a window to cross-border learning environments and shows how (future) professionals, residents, and researchers can work, learn, and innovate together. Ilya explores how learning environments can become catalysts when learning is embedded in the real world.

11:55 · Impact by Value of (our) Networks
Wim de Kinderen (Vice President, European Network of Living Labs; programmadirecteur European Affairs, Municipality Eindhoven / Brainport Development)
In this talk, Wim explores why Living Labs work and how these environments—where cities, residents, knowledge institutions, and governments experiment together—stimulate open innovation. He shows how collaboration at the street, neighborhood, and network levels can translate experiments into practical impact and yield insights for sustainable, open innovation ecosystems.

12:35 · Lunchbreak
(Foyer)

13:30 · Welcome back
(Main Hall)

*International parallel programme: Presenting: The ESC Repertoire
Celina Whitehead (Meeting Room)
This presentation and guided walk-through showcase four years of collaborative knowledge-building in systemic co-design through the ESC network’s diverse outputs. The session highlights hands-on tools, methodologies, research publications, design principles, and knowledge products that bridge theory and practice across transition contexts.

13:40 · Impact as Respons-Ability (Dutch keynote)
Theo Niessen (Professor of Impact, Fontys University of Applied Sciences)

14:00 · Book Presentation: Impact of Action Research (Dutch keynote)
Gertjan Schuiling (Senior Lecturer in Action Research for Change Makers, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
What is the impact of action research, and how can its diverse methodologies be understood and applied? In this keynote, co-author Gertjan introduces a new book that frames action research through six interconnected activities: researching, valuing, participating, changing, designing, and reflecting. He shows how researchers translate practice into knowledge.

14:45–15:00 · Break

15:00–16:40 · Workshops

Co-Design & New Technology in Higher Education
Claudia Mayer & Eric Gu (Studio)
Explore how emerging technologies, such as virtual reality and generative AI, can meaningfully enrich co-design in higher education and research. Presenting an international VR codesign collaboration with Australian students, developed together with Wina Smeenk and a design professor from QUT Brisbane. Eric Gu presents his PhD research on using AI to create synthetic stakeholders and animated personas as “crash test dummies,” critically reflecting on their limitations. This workshop is also available online, sign up here.

Impact of Action Research (Dutch workshop)
Authors of the book (Main Hall)
A closed session marking the launch of the new book, featuring roundtable discussions with the authors. This session is fully booked.

Decentralizing human-centered design.
Robin Sinke, Janneska Spoelman & Nino Basilashvili (Expo).
This workshop explores how a more-than-human perspective can be integrated into design education, using examples, practical exercises and joint reflection.

Image, Collage and Social Inequalities: Creative Methods in Academic Teaching
Justyna Tomala & Agata Miętus — Krakow University of Economics (IJ Hall)
Collage as a teaching method enhances learning, stimulates critical thinking, and deepens understanding of complex socio-economic phenomena. By focusing on material selection, prompts, group work, and reflection, collage becomes a structured analytical tool.

Learning Through Play, Thinking Through News: The NEED Project Against Disinformation
Maya Danova & Viltlena Vasileva — Nikanor Vet Centre & MVIDEE Foundation (Workspace)
Through hands-on gameplay, participants experience a NEED board game designed to help adult learners identify misinformation, evaluate source credibility, recognise bias, and reflect on how news is produced and shared.

ESC Research Team Workshop — Socionas
Laura Niño Cáceres, Celina Whitehead en Lenny van Onselen (Meeting Room).
Experience Socionas, a Systemic Co-Design method for exploring complex societal challenges. Participants work on real cases brought in by ESCreatives, mapping actors, relationships, and dynamics. The workshop focuses on collective sensemaking and includes a short ethnographic component. This is a condensed version of the ESCuela training.

16:40 · Closing ESConference