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.
