Open Research Amsterdam (EN) - Special New Scientist
in collaboration with
Foreword
For centuries, research and Amsterdam have been almost inextricably linked. We have two world-renowned universities, several colleges, and the technical and vocational training (ROC) where research is done every day to make the city more beautiful and liveable. Also, innovation districts like the Science Park, the ‘Marineterrein’, and science museum NEMO ensure that Amsterdam has become a knowledge region with a capital K. This Dare to Share special highlights exactly what kind of research takes place and how scientists work together. The title speaks volumes.
In Amsterdam, we are used to putting our shoulders to the wheel, with a smile of course, in order to achieve the best results together. As a municipality, we have used these proverbial shoulders to give everything related to science, research, innovation, and knowledge a push in the right direction. These countless initiatives, ways of collaborating, and experiments to make this city even more beautiful and liveable ll me with pride. In the year that Amsterdam celebrates its 750th anniversary, I wish you happy reading and hope this special inspires you to dare to share your knowledge as well.
Femke Halsema Mayor of Amsterdam
Stronger together Caroline Nevejan on the importance of sharing knowledge
Connected city Pablo Decelis Orozco envisions smarter cities 08 Numbers and statistics Studying how Amsterdam changes over time requires sharing, argues Jeroen Slot
12 Up close Get to know the Chief Science O ce team
14 Get in touch Minouche Cramer, Teti Verhoe and Aartie Mahesh are connectors
16 IF THEN Data sharing is the common thread in the life of Ger Baron
17 Joining forces Lise Everloo works together with residents on sustainability 18 Infographic The strength of openresearch.amsterdam is diversity
20 Keeping it clean Yvonne Jakobs believes infomationdriven management is key
23 Three PhDs Anne Sastromedjo, Laila Bouzahra and Juan-Carlos Goilo on their challenging projects
25 Proud people Vita van de Sandt highlights the city’s fashion identity
COLOPHON
This special was created by the editors of New Scientist on behalf of the City of Amsterdam. It will be included as a supplement to New Scientist 129, which will be available in stores on 23 January 2025.
Editor-in-chief Jim Jansen
Coordination Eline Kraaijenvanger
Final editing Margot Reesink Editing for openresearch.amsterdam
Caroline Nevejan and Naciye Karaalioğlu
Contributors to this issue Bram Belloni, Ruben Boot, Bob Bronsho , Jim Jansen, Peter de Jong, Eline Kraaijenvanger, Puck van der Mark, Lisa Pais, Maaike Putman, Kim Scheltes, Maureen Voestermans
This publisher is not liable for damages as a result of printing and typesetting errors.
COPYRIGHT Absolutely nothing in this publication may be copied or stored in a database or retrieval system in any way without the written permission of the publisher. The logo and other trademarks of New Scientist are the property of New Scientist Ltd. The publisher has endeavoured to ful l all legal requirements relating to the copyright of the illustrations. Anyone who is of the opinion that other copyright regulations apply, may apply to the publisher.
26 Village pump Janine van Rooijen and Joost Bos let us in on the secrets of the urban reseachers’ meeting
28 Beyond the borders Florian Wupperfeld, Maged Elsamny and Pedro Campos Ponce inspire and advise
30 Call for action Karen den Hartog and Siegnella Concincion raise the alarm about obesity in the city
32 User’s experience Pavel Getmantsev, Pinar Se atli and Elisabeth IJmker review
34 NewScience-tips Check out expositions, podcasts and books
‘Good collaboration cannot exist without sharing knowledge’
As Chief Science Officer of the City of Amsterdam, Caroline Nevejan is tasked with strengthening the city’s knowledge and research function, and structuring relationships with knowledge institutions.
Text: Jim Jansen
Photography: Bob Bronshoff
‘Amsterdam faces many challenges and issues, and as Chief Science Officer, I bring together researchers and officials to find solutions,’ says Caroline Nevejan when we speak with her in the summer of 2024. New questions arise mainly during implementation. Digitalisation is changing social structures, climate change has a major impact on our living environment, and the disparities between rich and poor become more prominent.
‘Together’ is the word that comes up most during the conversation with Nevejan. ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘Everything that happens here is done with others and in teams. Five years ago, we set up the website openresearch.amsterdam with the Chief Science Office (CSO) team and people from knowledge institutions. This platform is managed on the basis of the collaboration contract between the partners, which stipulates that employees of these organisations are allowed to share knowledge on behalf of their organisation. As such, research, knowledge, and innovation relevant to Amsterdam and the metropolitan region are gathered and shared. Dare to share, which is also reflected in our logo.
People can showcase their work on the platform, and it automatically shows who is working on the same topic.’
What does that boil down to in practice?
‘Sharing knowledge does not come naturally, while good collaboration cannot exist without it. With the CSO team, we enable faculties, institutes, and management teams to publish what research is being done in their field. This way, the knowledge infrastructure becomes visible, networks become transparent, and newcomers can easily find their way to people working on the same subjects. Sharing knowledge is also a personal process. That is why editors meet in editorial domain workshops, and there are now over 20 academic workshops and a number of major programmes in which people work together on certain subjects. This connects the work of professors, PhD candidates, and students with the work of officials on the city’s substantive issues.’
Take us to the platform.
‘On openresearch.amsterdam, we visualise who is doing what in the city. This helps if you are working on an urban issue and are looking for a discussion partner or want to collaborate, for example. We now have more than 250 editors sharing knowledge and research from their organisations.
Openresearch.amsterdam is a social and technical system. After all, sharing knowledge is a social process in which trust and reliability play a major role. In local networks, people know each other, and the knowledge they share is relevant to many others precisely because it is developed for local challenges. We see more and more people visiting our platform and, at the same time, more and more people sharing their research. As a result, the demands on user-friendliness and accessibility are increasing. In addition, the technology and the standard that digital services have to meet are constantly changing.’
The platform is a means to come up with solutions to major challenges in the Randstad area. In what current problems can research play a role?
‘Where can it not, I almost want to say. In opportunity inequality, energy transition, obesity, climate adaptation, biodiversity, mobility, and many other issues.’
What distinguishes openresearch.amsterdam from other websites?
‘Almost all websites have a tree structure, where what happens is determined from a single point of contact. Our platform can be compared more to something like Wikipedia. The CSO does not decide what is added: it is the 3,000 participants and 250
Caroline Nevejan studied social sciences at the University of Amsterdam and has been closely involved in digital culture design since 1988. She worked for Paradiso for 11 years, and in 1994 she co-founded the Waag Society. From 1999, she worked for the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, the Vrije Universiteit, and Delft University of Technology. She is currently Chief Science Officer at the City of Amsterdam and associate professor at the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research at the University of Amsterdam. www.nevejan.org
editors from the various organisations who decide what knowledge they want to share. People are responsible for their own page. We operate under the Creative Commons Attribution and ShareAlike licences. Every day, we check that references are correct. The website is non-commercial, so you are not allowed to make money from your work or anyone else’s. But passing on is allowed: ShareAlike.’
Does it work?
‘Very well; it is a great success. We launched in April 2020, and we have already collected more than 10,000 studies relating to the city. All research discussed in the city council and its committees is on openresearch.amsterdam, as is the research by the city, transport region, and provincial executive boards. Kennislink and science museum NEMO, which do fun research with children, will also be participating. I am not only happy that we have all this research together in one place, but also that we have a thousand visitors a day, three hundred of whom stay for more than 10 minutes. I find that quite impressive.’
How do you look back on the past eight years?
‘I hope I have been able to contribute to keeping the city a little friendlier.’
What do you think could be improved?
‘When I look beyond the borders of the city, I find that the Dutch way of thinking is very utilitarian. We have to go from here to there. From A to B. The dyke needs to be higher. The road needs to be longer. In my view, there is a lot of talk in terms of behaviour and not of experience; that is a major difference. You can manage behaviour, but this results in docile people with the same tunnel vision all going left, or all going right. When you shape policy based on experience, it means people can take responsibility, and a creative space is created where different solutions become possible. A perspective on action that leads to a diversity of analyses and possible solutions is really important to me.’
Dare to share, in other words.
‘I like that term. The knowledge in the public domain, for example the municipality’s knowledge… Dare to share it. This ties in
well with Amsterdam and the democratic process. If some know more than others, you create inequality that hinders good decisions.’
And that democracy is under pressure everywhere.
‘Yes, not a day goes by without hearing that democracy is in danger. I actually see democracy as a verb. You have to do democracy. I have to do democracy. We all have to do democracy.’
Can you give a specific example of how the city has improved because of certain forms of research?
‘The Energy Lab in Amsterdam Zuidoost is a great example. It started as a pop-up lab in shopping centre De Amsterdamse Poort, on the route walked by civil servants to the metro. It is now an established organisation; every week, researchers and students from the University of Amsterdam (UvA), the Vrije Universiteit, the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS) work on research on energy transition in Zuidoost, and students have become energy coaches for residents. This collaboration has now been in place for more than five years. Research projects are supported by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and the European Union, and municipalities and knowledge institutions have signed up for another five years.’
Being Chief Science Officer is an administrative job, but you also do research. ‘Yes, indeed. Since 2015, I have been researching rhythm as a design space for urban solutions. When we do something in rhythm, it takes less energy and connection arises more naturally. Nature exists in rhythm, we exist in rhythm – physically, but our social life also has many rhythms. Work, school, sports, and parties are often based on rhythms in time and space. We have been conducting this research with the Amsterdam Zuidoost district since 2016. We work with artists and architects, on the basis of social sciences and data research. This research is funded by NWO; I represent the UvA and I work with Alessandro Bozzon and Achilleas Psyllidis from TU Delft, and with the Habidatum company.’
Semantic web
‘In a semantic web, everything is a “thing” and meanings arise through the relationships between “things”. These relationships are established through keywords. The beauty of this is that meanings keep changing. For instance, initially the word “energy” in the urban context was mainly a technical word. Nowadays, energy has become important to many residents, associating the word with other topics, such as climate change, poverty or transition. This gives it new meaning.
What is special about the platform openresearch.amsterdam 2.0 is that we are now integrating artificial intelligence into the semantic web and establishing relationships with scientific databases worldwide. This will make available scientific open access articles relevant to the subjects on which people in the city are working.’
What are you most proud of?
‘The doctoral programme, which allows four civil servants to start their PhD research every year. They get two days of study leave and the universities offer free admission to the Graduate School. The first candidate, Juan-Carlos Goilo, has now obtained his PhD. He designed the circular economy monitor for the municipality of Amsterdam (see page 24, red.). The doctoral committee noted that they had not previously seen such scientific reflection on policy formation and implementation. Not only is it nice for the civil servants who get to do this, it also gives a new scientific perspective on what is happening in the city. Sixteen people are now pursuing a doctorate degree; the next two PhD ceremonies will take place soon, for Siegnella Concincion, youth healthcare nurse at the Municipal Health Service, and for senior policy advisor Anne Sastroemedjoe (see pages 31 and 23, red.). That is simply amazing!’
Pablo Decelis Orozco (31)
Master Metropolitan Analysis, Design and Engineering, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS).
Thesis: Charge Your Boat (Wireless)
‘I grew up in the middle of busy and crowded Mexico City. Everything is big there, both the distances between di erent neighbourhoods and between buildings. In Amsterdam, everything is much smaller, but that makes the connections very good. During my studies at AMS, a group of us students had to walk around the city for a day and write down what we thought could be improved. e Dutch students had comments like “ e tram came two minutes late” or “ e public transport app was not updated.” But my eyes were popping out! Everything here in Amsterdam is extremely well organised in my opinion: you can go anywhere by public transport, and everything is seamlessly connected and digitally accessible. But precisely because everything is already so well organised here, it is interesting to think about what else can be connected.
For me as a civil engineer, energy and mobility are the most interesting subjects; people are always on the move, and we cannot possibly do without energy. But how do you organise an entire city as e ciently as possible? For my master’s thesis, I thought about ways in which you could sail electrically powered robot boats through the canals, to transport all sorts of things or to pick up rubbish. I researched this in a smart lab: a miniature version in which you connect all the data, such as sailing routes and dimensions of boats, houses, zoning plans, and so on – and then run tests.
I also thought about how you could charge the boats wirelessly. In China, for example, they devised a way to charge a battery at a distance of up to three metres from the quay. But how can you make sure this is safe? I also tried to map this out. It involves a lot of programming, but fortunately all municipal data is publicly available. In the future, I envision much smarter cities, where everything is powered by renewable energy sources and there are even more connections, for example to recycle raw materials locally.’
Text: Maureen Voestermans
‘In the future, I envision much smarter cities’
‘It
is not wrong to start with thinking’
Text: Ruben Boot
Photography: Bram Belloni
Jeroen Slot has been head of the Research and Statistics Department at the City of Amsterdam since 2008, where he has been working for 40 years. Using numbers and statistics, he studies how Amsterdam is changing over time. By providing these figures with context and making them freely available, he aims to make the city’s development visible to the general public.
What do you and your department study?
‘We research everything from the housing market to the labour market, but also population trends. A lot has happened in the past 40 years, and so there is a lot of data to collect and study. Amsterdam started growing again around 1985 after a long period of contraction; that growth has continued ever since. By looking at numbers, we can find out what the cause for that is. For instance, technological developments such as computers boosted this growth enormously, but democratised education, accession to the European Union, and an influx of people from abroad also led to more people moving to the city.’
How do you collect this data?
‘We are helped immensely by the simple fact that all residents of the city are registered with the municipality. This provides us with a lot of data. There is also income data – this is not collected by the municipality itself, but we get it through Statistics Netherlands (CBS). We also use surveys and collect data from the internet. With the
latter, we can, for example, search for B&B providers, how many positive or negative messages are posted on certain forums, and so on.’
How do the results of your research reach policymakers and residents of Amsterdam?
‘You want to do more than write a report and then move on to the next topic. We see it as our duty to share and publicise results. We do this with openresearch.amsterdam and through publications, but we also do it much more actively by engaging with policy departments, politicians, administrators, police, housing associations, and residents’ organisations. We give presentations and strive to offer the best possible numerical basis for debates.
Of course, it is complicated to determine what constitutes “correct” use of the results of our research. Above all, we want to prevent people from cherrypicking and selectively copying parts of the data for their narrative, thus losing actual conclusions. By the way, all our data is open data: it is openly available, editable, and freely shareable. By making it fully available to the city and the rest of the world, we give anyone with an interest the opportunity to use it.’
How do you handle the data securely? ‘Because we make the data available as open data, we always have to be careful not to reveal private data of residents. Of course, there are strict privacy laws for that. Also, technology makes combining data increasingly easy, which leads to complex situations. For example, if every resident in a neighbourhood has voted, can
CVJeroen Slot (Enschede, 1958) studied social geography at the University of Amsterdam and graduated as an urban geographer in 1984. In 1985, he, as conscientious objector. started working for the municipality of Amsterdam. There, he was appointed head of the Research and Statistics Department in 2008. Together with several authors, he contributed to the ‘Bosatlas van Amsterdam’, published in 2015, which contains hundreds of maps, illustrations, and photographs of the city and its inhabitants.
For data: https://data.amsterdam.nl/
For maps: https://maps.amsterdam.nl/
you publicise that? Because everyone would be able to see it, even though it is private information.
When we work with personal data, we therefore do so as securely as possible. It starts with awareness: you have to ask yourself whether it still serves a purpose.’
What do you think Amsterdam residents gain from all this data?
‘Ultimately, this data is one of the components that helps paint a realistic picture of how the city is doing. Where are things going well, where not so well, and which way are they heading? With our research, we do not want to say which changes are “good” or “bad”, but rather to indicate where and
‘We see it as our duty to share and publicise the results’
when these changes take place. Like this, all this data can serve as an optimal tool for making choices. It is not wrong to start with thinking.’
How have technological developments affected your work over the past 40 years?
‘Long ago, I started working for the council in a building on the Singel. There, we had an outbuilding with an attic that held thousands of hotel notes. Every now and then, a police officer would stop by and wanted to know who had spent the night where and when. So, we would embark on a search through the huge pile of notes. These are things we cannot imagine now.
Our work has become much easier, faster, and more comprehensive thanks to computers. Although I must say, fantastic research was also being done in the years before computers. It just took more time.’
What meaning does Amsterdam have for you after all these years?
‘I often say that there are two things between Amsterdam and me that are never going to work out: Heineken and Ajax. But, apart from that, Amsterdam is of course the most fun and interesting city in the country.
Long ago, you could easily see the edges of the city from the church tower. This has long since become impossible, even as buildings have become much taller. Where the city ends is now unclear because of all the surrounding municipalities. Amsterdam continues to grow. For me, the essence of the city lies in encounters and collisions. That gives the city its innovative strength.’
Benefits from the digital public space
The municipality of Amsterdam is collecting more and more data on the city and its residents. What is the purpose of this so-called ‘digital public space’ and how can it be optimised?
Text: Kim Scheltes
Photography: Bob Bronshoff
Sennay Ghebreab (Addis Ababa, 1973) is full professor of Socially-Intelligent AI at the UvA and founder of the Civic AI Lab.
How are you engaging with the digital public space?
‘At the Civic AI Lab, we use artificial intelligence (AI) to identify and reduce inequality of opportunity in the city. Consider, for example, inequality of mobility: not all resident groups can use public transport routes as easily. Using various AI technologies, we are studying this inequality and researching how to optimally change the public transport routes so that all people in Amsterdam have an equal opportunity to get from point A to point B.’
How do you ensure that this goes well?
‘Today, we are still creating AI for people. This means scientists, municipalities, and companies are developing technologies based on their own data sources and assumptions about the needs of the general public. When that goes wrong, it creates distrust. Our ultimate goal is AI technology with people, or even by people. We want residents themselves are able to share their data. Because if you develop something together and can demonstrate that all parties have an interest in it, you create trust.’
How are you engaging with the digital public space?
‘I am looking at how municipalities can make use of so-called business-to-government data sharing. Companies have a lot of information that can help the city solve problems such as crowd management. For example, suppose the municipality wants to know how many people come into Amsterdam on King’s Day. In that case, they could ask the NS how many people pass through the train station’s ticket barriers on that day.’
How do you ensure that this goes well?
‘Information can include personal data. So, if the municipality wants to collect data, they should always think carefully about the purpose. If you collect more data than you need, you can create distrust among the general public. Companies must also have enough trust. Today, they still fear that their information will be used in the wrong way or that trade secrets will be made public. We are now studying whether we can avoid this by, for example, involving a third party with legal, organisational, and technical knowledge about data sharing, as an intermediary.’
As associate professor at the Institute for Information Law at the UvA, Heleen Janssen (Geldrop, 1970) studies the impact of digitisation on society.
Joyce van den Berg (Zeist, 1977), chief designer at the City of Amsterdam, is developing a method to realise the city’s sustainability goals at the system level.
How are you trying to improve public spaces?
‘A lot about public spaces needs to change if the city is to meet the climate goals: energy supply, biodiversity, climate adaptation, a circular economy... Of course, you want to avoid having to open up the streets unnecessarily. The way we maintain the city should be a service to residents, not a hindrance.
With our integrated design method, we try to look at a holistic level to see how we can make these changes all at once. If you manage to organise that well, the streets only need to be opened up once instead of five times.’
What challenges are you facing?
‘This is about a shift in the entire field of spatial planning: landscape architects know little about cables and pipes, for example. They can think of where we should plant trees, but they do not know whether those trees have enough space underground for their roots. So, we need to share much more knowledge with each other in advance. Technically, we know how to do this, but it also requires a culture change.’
Innovation in public spaces
Public spaces must change dramatically to withstand the current climate crisis.
What innovations are needed for this, and what obstacles stand in the way?
Text: Kim Scheltes
Photography: Bob Bronshoff
How are you trying to improve public spaces?
‘As part of the food forest Voedselbos Amsterdam Zuidoost, we are trying to increase biodiversity in the city together with the residents. Several plots totalling sixty-five hectares are involved. According to traditional city maintenance, mowing is done about twenty-two times a year. This may look “neat”, but it is less fun for insects and birds. So, we try to take care of these spaces in a different way to create high-quality biodiversity.’
What challenges are you facing?
‘There is no procedure for a project like this. Despite being asked by the municipality to do this, there are always parties who oppose us. For instance, the plants we sow or place are mowed down, or large slabs of concrete are laid on our orchards when the streets are worked on.
In the first year, we lost almost all the residents involved because they felt they were treated unfairly by the municipality itself. We were treated as if we were complaining local residents, when we were just doing our job.
The Voedselbos community has existed for several years now. Embedding in the neighbourhood and in the municipality continues to require constant attention.’
Debra Solomon (NL), a researcher at the UvA, works with residents to create more biodiversity in public spaces.
CLOSE UP
Over two hundred editors across 18 knowledge institutes are responsible for the content of openresearch.amsterdam by publishing the knowledge they gain from their research in their collections on the platform. As owners of this content, they can manage their articles at any time. e CSO team, pictured here, coordinates and facilitates this process and acts as editor-in-chief.
As Chief Science O cer, Caroline Nevejan is the primary point of contact for research-related enquiries from the municipality of Amsterdam. Her overarching task is to strengthen the sustainable knowledge infrastructure in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area.
e ve domain coordinators in the CSO team play an important role in this. e editors are divided into editorial domain workshops, based on the organisational clusters of the municipality of Amsterdam. Domain editors keep in touch with researchers at universities, colleges, the ROC, and sometimes with social and cultural organisations in their areas, as well as train new editors. ey also gather the knowledge in their domain and bring together
various researchers and perspectives on similar topics. ey bridge the gap between the civil service and scienti c communities by sharing this knowledge, encouraging collaborations. e domain coordinators pictured here are Eva Baaren of Digitalisation, Innovation & Information; Anna Jonkmans of Arts & Culture; and Naciye Karaalioğlu of City Districts, Management & Services.
e platform also features the City Council Research Collection, a collection of studies underlying city council decision-making. In addition to her work as secretary, Carrie Leermakers adds to this collection on a weekly basis.
ijs van Schijndel is responsible for further development of the platform. is includes, for example, collecting user feedback and collaborating with developers. Recently, he has been focusing on developing openresearch.amsterdam 2.0, the improved version with a number of new features.
e CSO team also always has room for interns and trainees, such as Bobo Ophuis and Sonida Sok
Left to right: Bobo Ophuis - Naciye Karaalioğlu - Eva Baaren - Sonida Sok - Thijs van Schijndel - Carrie Leermakers - Caroline Nevejan – Anna Jonkmans
PHOTO: BOB BRONSHOFF
Text: Eline Kraaijenvanger
Photography: Bram Belloni
Networks in the city
Three established employees of the City of Amsterdam on their professional network, seeking connections, and the future of the city.
Minouche Cramer: ‘As someone who is born and raised in Amsterdam, I am always looking for ways to improve the city. This is also the vision of the Amsterdam Innovation Department: how can we improve the lives of residents, entrepreneurs, and visitors, now and in the future? We inspire and motivate to apply new ideas, insights, and technologies in and for the city. We never do this alone: all the topics we work on – from health to digital innovation – involve partners. We are very aware that all major transitions require collaboration.
In addition to working with national and international public authorities, educational institutions, and startups, I also enjoy working with Amsterdam residents themselves. For example, we talk to them about their views on artificial intelligence. We then interweave their insights with those of professionals. These conversations show how strongly the impact of this technology is felt by everyone and where the concerns and opportunities lie.
A good network is incredibly important when dealing with societal challenges. The better you know who you need, the better the conversation, and the result. But you have to be careful not to get caught up in a bubble. It is important to keep looking for new partners who view the world differently.
As public authorities, we do many of the same things in the Netherlands, which we could easily have shared or copied. At the
The Innovation Department was set up within the municipality of Amsterdam ten years ago. Minouche Cramer (Amsterdam, 1987) was involved from the beginning, as project leader, programme manager, innovation manager, and now as head of the department.
Innovation Department, we try to look for that connection as much as possible, to learn from it, and to avoid making similar mistakes. Openresearch.amsterdam helps with this; we share much of our work here. What I love about it is that a project does not have to be finished to be of value. You can also learn from it when it is still very much in development.’
Teti Verhoeff: ‘I have been working for the municipality of Amsterdam since 1996, fortunately in a different place and role every five to seven years. Now I am project leader of the Designing Trust project (Ontwerpen van Vertrouwen), where we look at the trust between the people of Amsterdam and the municipality, as well as what we
can do to strengthen it. We do this by collaborating with lots of different people and having meaningful conversations. The common ground we find, ensures that we work as a unit to do good.
All my working life, I have only thought of the bigger picture. That is just how my head works. Even when I was still working for a city district and working on urban greening, for example, I immediately
thought of all the other city districts and how we could work together to do better. I still do that now. Trust is pre-eminently a topic for collaboration. Within the organisation, there are all sorts of people working on different aspects surrounding a subject, all patches in a patchwork. And as a single patch, you cannot get it done – you really have to do it together.
The same applies to trust as to issues such as diversity, equality, and inclusion, to psychological safety, as discrimination, and as dissent... It is incredibly important that we learn how to have tough conversations. Otherwise, it becomes difficult to embrace the differences between parties and to learn from each other. I really like the fact that nowadays we are talking about things that used to be considered personal and therefore were not discussed. We are far from being there yet – it is very complicated, and it takes a lot of courage – but it does mean things are shifting. That gives us hope.’
Aartie Mahesh: ‘I have been working on diversity, equality, and inclusion since 2019. As an organisation, we want to move towards a more responsive, more humane government and these issues are very important in this regard. You can see from all kinds of developments in healthcare and education that we as a society are ready for new relationships, a new reality, which you
Teti Verhoeff (Beverwijk, 1968) is a true connector. After various positions in different organisational units, she has been project leader within the Digitalisation and Innovation management team since September 2022.
cannot achieve if you are working from old paradigms. So, a shift is very much needed, both organisationally and personally. We need to start working on the basis of wisdom, rather than managing on the basis of knowledge.
Many topics within the municipality are approached rationally, mainly on the basis of scientific objectives. But here, you cannot do it that way. Working with standardised questionnaires and quotas is old school. This addiction to data, to numbers that the municipality has, is not enough if we want to properly identify issues such as inclusion and diversity. The story actually has many subjective sides that cannot be
captured in convenient numbers. After all, it is the person who does or does not make the connection, who does or does not have recognition in society. It is the person who is aware of their privileges and knows what they want to do with them. That makes my job very satisfying, but also quite tough.
Over the years, I have come across all kinds of changemakers – people who recognised that there was room for improvement and especially for simplification within the organisation. Who, like me, have the deep awareness that we need to move towards a different way of working. Somehow, they know how to find me. And once you look beyond the operational barriers of the organisation, you are suddenly very close to the energy of residents; that is so cool and authentic. People are immensely proud of their neighbourhood, and if we get to be a small part of that... That makes it all worthwhile.’
Aartie Mahesh (Den Haag, 1974) has been working in various positions for the municipality of Amsterdam since 2005; she knows the organisation well. She joined the Digitalisation and Innovation management team (formerly CTO Innovation Team) five years ago.
Column Ger Baron
When I was ten, we got our rst computer at home, a Philips P-3105 XT.
A PC on which I used GW-BASIC to write my rst lines of ‘code’, essentially ‘IF’ ‘THEN’. With a few minor additions like ‘LESS THAN’, ‘ELSE’, and ‘PRINT’, I wrote my rst programme, an address book. e application I had come up with was for address stickers on Christmas cards. It ended up working very well, and we got many years of use out of it.
What I had not quite grasped initially was that to get an application to work, you had to get not only the code right, but also the data. When entering the details of relatives and friends, I discovered that my parents often knew the addresses by heart and had not written them down anywhere. My father was exceptionally good at remembering addresses; his job was sorting and delivering mail. e latter also explained why he saw little use in my self-built application.
When I started at the City of Amsterdam in 2014, I and many others ran into the same thing my father did in 1988: all the knowledge was in people’s heads. And what was perhaps just as bad, it was also seen as personal knowledge. For example, I remember well when a colleague gave a presentation on the city’s expansions and future. Afterwards, I introduced myself and asked if I could have his presentation. He looked at me like I was crazy. After all, it was his presentation.
So, I proposed a knowledge sharing system within the municipality of Amsterdam, a way to search for documents and knowledge internally. I have no idea how many people I had to seek support from for this, but nobody seemed really interested, except at City Archaeology and Research & Statistics. In meetings there, I found out that the municipality of Amsterdam never really does anything new – everything has been done before. 40,000 refugees have already been accommodated in Amsterdam, there have already been major energy transitions (to coal, to gas), and we have also been doing international trade on a huge scale for ve hundred years.
Now, with the launch of the platform
openresearch.amsterdam, there is nally a place where knowledge is shared, developed, and made accessible – and not just knowledge from the municipality, but also from other knowledge partners in the city. For the rst time in four hundred years, the municipality of Amsterdam is pooling its knowledge and transcending the level of knowledge sharing of my father and myself. Knowledge is in heads, but only becomes shareable when you share it in a smart way.
In the year 2024, the City of Amsterdam is starting to develop collective knowledge instead of celebrating individual insights that turn out to be the same time and again. Apparently, the urgency is now great enough to work together and move beyond egos. And that feels really good.
'For the first time in four hundred years, the municipality of Amsterdam is pooling its knowledge and transcending the level of knowledge sharing of my father and myself'
Ger Baron Chief Technology O cer Amsterdam
‘For me, the social side of the energy transition is at least as interesting as the technical advances’
Lise Everloo (24)
Master Management, Policy Analysis and Entrepreneurship in Health and Life Sciences, Vrije Universiteit.
Thesis: Self-organising capacity: How can it be fostered within a community in Amsterdam Zuidoost?
‘While writing my thesis, I visited the Groene Hub in Amsterdam Zuidoost, a kind of community centre where sustainability is central, at least three times a week. In the beginning, they were like: “What are these students doing here?”, but after a while they noticed that we were really there to help them in practical terms. I made some great connections with the people there! It is a place where we promote “energy literacy”, among other things. Often, people have no idea how anything relating to energy really works. For example, they are surprised that a dryer guzzles a huge amount of energy, and that it can therefore be more economical to hang your laundry on a line – in addition to it being better for the environment. But there is much more for local residents to do at the Groene Hub. For example, they also have a sewing workshop, where you can repair clothes, but also take a course to learn how to make an insulation curtains, for example. I also visited people’s homes a lot to see what they could do to make their homes more sustainable. Often, small adjustments such as radiator foil can already be helpful. Amsterdam o ers these adjustments to residents for free, which I think is a good move by the city!
Personally, I really grew up with sustainability: we used to eat a lot of vegetarian food and learned to think about the environment. But I realise that this might not be so self-evident for everyone; we really need to work on that. For me, the social side of the energy transition is therefore at least as interesting as all the technical advances. Places like the Groene Hub are ideal for this, collaborating with people to create a more sustainable environment. In the future, I envision a Hub like this in every neighbourhood for joint sustainable energy management. Zuidoost really is a trendsetter in this respect: a lot of initiatives have been started here, such as the fact that the energy from the Johan Cruij ArenA is being reused by the neighbourhood. e rest of Amsterdam and also other cities could learn from this, I think! By the way, my research and knowledge about the Groene Hub can all be consulted for free at openresearch.amsterdam.’
Text: Maureen Voestermans
Dare to share
durf te delen
Access to different types of knowledge is essential for the democracy, broad prosperity, and resilience of the Amsterdam region. That is why knowledge institutions, public authorities, and civil-society organisations share the knowledge they develop with the region and the city.
durf te delen
Voor de democratie, brede welvaart en veerkracht van de regio Amsterdam is toegang tot verschillende soorten kennis onmisbaar. Daarom delen kennisinstellingen, overheid en maatschappelijke organisaties de kennis die zij ontwikkelen met regio en stad. openresearch.amsterdam is een lokale netwerkomgeving die dit onderzoek, ontwerp en beleid zichtbaar maakt in relatie tot elkaar. Zo ontstaat interdisciplinaire en integrale kennisontwikkeling in en voor de grootstedelijke opgaven van de regio Amsterdam.
Openresearch.amsterdam is a local network environment that makes this research, design, and policy accessible in relation to each other. This creates interdisciplinary and integrated knowledge development in and for the metropolitan challenges of the Amsterdam region. Vital knowledge-sharing networks are indispensable for the research of issues in the city. Openresearch. amsterdam therefore connects authors and their contributions from fields of science, design, policy, and practice in online and offline networks. The strength of openresearch.amsterdam is diversity. Diversity in types of knowledge, in disciplines and topics, in methods and techniques, in meetings and relationships, in projects and productions, and in the style of stories. Studies that inform the Amsterdam City Council are also published via openresearch.amsterdam. This clarifies who is working on what and allows people with different types of knowledge to find each other at the right time to work together on solutions to new issues that emerge in the city.
Voor de democratie, brede welvaart en veerkracht van de regio Amsterdam is toegang tot verschillende soorten kennis onmisbaar. Daarom delen kennisinstellingen, overheid en maatschappelijke organisaties de kennis die zij ontwikkelen met regio en stad. openresearch.amsterdam is een lokale netwerkomgeving die dit onderzoek, ontwerp en beleid zichtbaar maakt in relatie tot elkaar. Zo ontstaat interdisciplinaire en integrale kennisontwikkeling in en voor de grootstedelijke opgaven van de regio Amsterdam.
Vitale netwerken voor kennisdelen zijn van groot belang voor het onderzoeken van vragen in de stad. openresearch.amsterdam verbindt daarom auteurs en hun bijdragen uit domeinen van wetenschap, ontwerp, beleid en praktijk in on- en offline netwerken.
Vitale netwerken voor kennisdelen zijn van groot belang voor het onderzoeken van vragen in de stad. openresearch.amsterdam verbindt daarom auteurs en hun bijdragen uit domeinen van wetenschap, ontwerp, beleid en praktijk in on- en offline netwerken.
De grote kracht van openresearch.amsterdam is diversiteit. Diversiteit in soorten kennis, in disciplines en onderwerpen, in methoden en technieken, in ontmoetingen en relaties, in projecten en producties, in de stijl van verhalen. Ook onderzoeken die de gemeenteraad van Amsterdam informeren, worden via openresearch.amsterdam gepubliceerd. Zo wordt zichtbaar wie waar aan werkt en kunnen mensen met verschillende soorten kennis elkaar op het juiste moment vinden om samen te werken aan nieuwe vragen in de stad.
De grote kracht van openresearch.amsterdam is diversiteit. Diversiteit in soorten kennis, in disciplines en onderwerpen, in methoden en technieken, in ontmoetingen en relaties, in projecten en producties, in de stijl van verhalen. Ook onderzoeken die de gemeenteraad van Amsterdam informeren, worden via openresearch.amsterdam gepubliceerd. Zo wordt zichtbaar wie waar aan werkt en kunnen mensen met verschillende soorten kennis elkaar op het juiste moment vinden om samen te werken
Litter in the city
For Yvonne Jakobs, director of the Public Works management team, research and practical experience are like two communicating vessels, both of paramount importance. She is responsible for the collection of Amsterdam’s litter and day-to-day management of public spaces, leaving no stone unturned to make the city even cleaner with the resources available. ‘Data’ is the magic word here.
Text: Peter de Jong Photography: Bram Belloni
Every year, the men and women of the Clean department pick up roughly 15,000 tonnes of rubbish from Amserdam’s streets, public gardens, and parks. This includes emptying the bins. It is a hell of a job in a city growing like crazy, with increasing numbers of buildings and inhabitants. Add to this the many events, tourists, and day-trippers and you are faced with quite a challenge as the manager in charge. Jakobs: ‘I am constantly looking for ways to make the work more efficient. Research into the where, what, how, and why of litter helps with this, as we do not have an unlimited budget. Long ago, Amsterdam had a lantern lighter who lit the lanterns one by one. Times have changed.’
How is street litter created?
‘With over 11,000 litter bins, we try to make it easy for people to dispose of their litter, but the behaviour of public space users plays a decisive role. Most litter is created in high-traffic areas. The more anonymous the area, the dirtier it is. Some people treat the city like a hotel. There, they don’t make the bed either and they leave the glasses on the table.’
How do you keep the city as clean as possible?
‘I believe in information-driven management: it is important to be well-informed before going out onto the streets. We have our own employees for that. The sweepers know better than anyone where most of the trash is. In addition, we have inspectors, who map out where it is not clean enough. And in the busier areas, it is the neighbourhood wardens who are in direct contact with business owners and residents. Sweeping is the last step in keeping the city clean. Our basic principle is: when a bin is 75 per cent full, we empty it. But then you have to make sure you monitor things properly. Science, among other things, plays a role in that.’
To what extent does data play a role in your management?
‘It is crucial: no good management without data. But it has to be processed in the right way so that my staff on the street can work as efficiently as possible. One of the things we at Public Works have been working on with the innovation team is the notification procedure. When people used to submit a report, it sometimes took days for it to
reach the relevant staff member. Now, all employees get a notification directly on their iPad while they are working. The employee takes a picture of the location before and after intervention and sends it to the back office. Last year at Public Works, we processed an average of 11,000 reports every month.’
Litter in figures (2023) Clean department of the City of Amsterdam
Over 600 employees, 7 days a week, 16 hours a day
86 sweepers vehicles
98 rubbish tippers
25 street washers
11.533 rubbish bins
100 rubbish pyramids
29,432,627 m2 management area
15.000 tonnes of street litter removed
Cost of street litter: around €60 million
Do you also use external researchers?
‘Definitely. The outside scientist’s view is always welcome, diving deeper into the how and why of litter. We make grateful use of the municipality’s Chief Science Officer, Caroline Nevejan. She knows how to connect with academic institutions like no other. In 2019, we started the Clean City workshop in Amsterdam, a collaboration of officials, scientists, and artists. This has resulted in a lot of studies. One is the PhD research of Pinar Sefkatli (see page 33, red.), who has looked at the frequency of rubbish in Amsterdam Zuidoost. Another PhD student, Maarten Sukel, focused on the possibility of using paid-parking scanning cars for rubbish bags that have been disposed of incorrectly.
Unfortunately, management of public space is not yet a subject of scientific research in the same way that spatial planning and urban planning are. So, it is important that we as a municipality actively attract and engage in scientific research. For example, we participate with other public authorities, businesses, and Wageningen University in the Management of Public Space Foundation, which does exactly that: connect.’
What does openresearch.amsterdam mean for you and the city?
‘It is a gold mine. You can find studies there by colleagues or scientists that may also be significant for your work. Why re-invent the wheel? We post all our studies on the platform. Everyone is welcome to take a look. I can recommend it to every organisation to use it. Dare to share your knowledge. Dare to learn from others – you have nothing to lose. You will only gain more insight. While studying environmental science, I wrote a thesis on what public authorities can do with scientific knowledge. I have always kept that focus: connecting science and practice. We as a municipality have a lot of data that scientists can use. I find that they often have no idea about this yet. I say: let them draw freely from this treasure trove –it works both ways.’
Finally, what is the state of the city nowadays, in terms of litter?
‘Litter is persistent and remains a challenge in a city that keeps growing. But every day our staff enjoys going back into the city to keep it clean. I really respect that.’
Below ground
Between 2003 and 2018, work was carried out on the new metro line through the centre of Amsterdam –the North/South Line. This provided access to a unique archaeological site at the Damrak and Rokin construction sites: the Amstel riverbed. Almost 700,000 finds were collected here, linked to the history of Amsterdam from 1300 to 2000.
The current Rokin metro station is a good result of collaboration between research, policy, and implementation. The presentation of archaeological finds from under the Amstel River was realised in the metro station by the City of Amsterdam, the University of Amsterdam, the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, architects, and the North/ South Line project organisation.
Visit the website: belowthesurface.amsterdam
In this beautifully illustrated volume, a variety of experts tell the history of the archaeological finds. The stories about the objects bring Amsterdam through the centuries to life.
Hidden under the Amstel Editors: Jerzy Gawronski & Willem van Zoetendaal
HARALD STRAK
Words of wisdom
Every year, the municipality of Amsterdam o ers four civil servants the chance to do a PhD on a strategic topic for the city. Three of them talk about their research and their mission.
Text: Ruben Boot
Images: Maaike Putman
From the 1980s to 2014, Amsterdam was governed by a district council, which meant that the mayor and councillors and the city council transferred almost all their powers to various district councils. It was the city’s autonomous choice to set up governance in this way. ‘I had just been working at the City of Amsterdam for a year when the Rutte I government decided in 2010 to abolish this district council system,’ says senior policy advisor Anne Sastromedjo (Paramaribo, 1961). Suddenly, all hands had to be on deck to prepare for this complicated transition. The question of why the government passed this law that particularly affected Amsterdam remained with Sastromedjo for years. When she got the chance to do a PhD in 2019, she already knew what topic she wanted to research: what policy choices were behind this law?
For her research, Sastromedjo delved into books and the city archives, interviewing former councillors and politicians, among
others. ‘I already had some of the data that was available, as I was an senior policy advisor focussing on this dossier at the time,’ she says. ‘Doing research took some getting used to – I had not been in a lecture hall for years.’ During the week, Sastromedjo worked as an senior policy advisor, so she used her leave hours, evenings, and weekends for her PhD, in addition to the study hours provided by her employer. It was hard work: ‘Much of the city archives have not yet been digitised. Sometimes I received 40 archive boxes with no index, and I would search folder after folder for information I could use.’
With her dissertation, Sastromedjo hopes not only to make sense of how power works in these policy choices, but also to show how to conduct practice-based research on power. Extraordinarily, her dissertation comes out as the city celebrates its 750-year anniversary. Sastromedjo is looking forward to it: ‘I hope that my book can give the government and the people of Amsterdam insight into how the new structure of the city government came about, and how the abstract concept of “power” plays out in practice.’
Laila Bouzahra (Amsterdam, 1982) works as a legal advisor for the City of Amsterdam and focuses on objection and appeal procedures within the Environmental & Planning Act. This new law, which took effect in early 2024, merges old laws and brings everything that can be seen, heard, and smelled outside under one law and thus one point of contact.
’Much of the city archives have not yet been digitised. Sometimes I received 40 archive boxes with no index’
This makes it the biggest legislative amendment since the Constitution was amended in 1848.
‘If a citizen lodges an objection, for example, if they disagree with the refusal of a permit they have applied for, I handle the objection procedure, and we first enter into a discussion with that person. If they disagree with the decision, they can appeal to the court,’ said Bouzahra. Since early this year, she has been working on her PhD on possible changes to these objection and appeal procedures under the Environmental & Planning Act. ‘This Act is intended to make it easier for citizens to apply for permits for modifications to the physical environment now that there is only one point of contact for them. I am going to study whether this will reduce the number of objections and appeals that are filed.’
As a brand-new PhD student, she is at
the beginning of her research. Bouzahra: ‘I am still putting things on paper and defining an approach. I am conducting interviews at various municipalities and am already working on a first publication. I was very happy when I was chosen last year as one of four candidates to do a PhD for the municipality, although of course I also find it quite exciting. My aim is to complete my research within four years, and I hope my findings will add value to the municipality of Amsterdam.’
way they use information for greener policies. For a circular economy, where you reuse materials sustainably, for example, you want to collect statistical data in a structural way. Goilo: ‘I explored how the city and the island differ in approach when gathering this information, and to what extent this information actually impacts their policies.’ As an anthropologist, Goilo immersed himself in both working cultures to observe them closely. ‘I looked at how the two groups designed their own systems to get started with the circular economy. First, in Amsterdam, I co-wrote a strategy for a monitoring system to collect information. Having presented the strategy to the team, I then studied from the sidelines how they developed the system further. This was also the most difficult part of the research for me: I was eager to actively help set up the system in both Amsterdam and Curaçao, but had to give myself a good talking to, to let it go. I had to observe rather than participate.’
Gradually, Goilo saw that Amsterdam converted the available data into knowledge in a very targeted way, while Curaçao took a more fragmented approach. ‘Amsterdam handled statistical data much more concretely, so the city progressed much faster than Curaçao. But the flip side was that Amsterdam appeared to be more likely to fall into tunnel vision because of their focussed thinking. At the same time, the fragmented knowledge in Curaçao provided a broad and inclusive perspective, but one that did not lead to a targeted policy approach.’
‘I find circular economy an endlessly fascinating topic,’ says Juan-Carlos Goilo (Willemstad, 1983), information specialist at the City of Amsterdam. Last year, he defended his dissertation on the differences between Amsterdam and Curaçao in the
To break this inequality, Goilo suggests that cities focus on developing systems that not only extract information about their own city but also connect to other systems from which they can learn. Curaçao’s fragmentation can lead to more inclusion and diversity in Amsterdam, and Curaçao can be more goal-oriented in its approach. Goilo: ‘So much research is still needed on the circular economy. That kept me motivated every day of my PhD journey.’
Vita van de Sandt (26)
Bachelor at the Amsterdam Fashion Institute.
Thesis: Amsterdam, the modern fashion city
‘Being born and raised in Amsterdam, I noticed in recent years that the city is changing its image out of necessity. e city is done with partying visitors who only come for the co ee shops and the Red-Light District. Certainly necessary, but it seems to me a great shame if, for example, plans to relocate the Red-Light District actually were to go ahead. Of course, visitors also come here for culture, but mainly for the museums. As a fashion branding student, I saw potential: why does Amsterdam not pro le itself more with its fashion identity, as cities like Berlin and Copenhagen do? rough a city rebranding, the city can make more room for a renewed vision, thereby gaining a reputation that sparks the interest of a new target group of visitors. Just like the city marketing slogan ‘I amsterdam’ was once created to present the city in an attractive way.
With everything that is going on with us in fashion, we can now say: “Look, this is what Amsterdam has to o er as well!” During my internship at amsterdam&partners, I researched the city’s fashion identity. I did this through interviews with local fashion professionals, but also by talking to people in the street. From this, it emerged that Amsterdam excels in fashion mainly because of the balance between the collective and individual expression. Here, it has always been the people of Amsterdam who determine fashion, not like in Paris where fashion is mainly dictated by the big fashion houses. And it has also always been our strength in collaborating that gets us this far. is mentality is re ected in our denim industry as well, in our innovation in sustainability, and the community feeling that emerges from the streetwear brands on the Zeedijk.
ere is no sense of competition in Amsterdam. is mindset can also be seen in the way in which we as residents embrace the three St Andrew’s Crosses (XXX), on clothing, for example, or like myself with a tattoo behind my ear. is is not as obvious in any other city as it is here in Amsterdam. New York has the well-known I <3 NYC logo, but how many New Yorkers do you actually see wearing it? We, the people of Amsterdam, are proud of our city and we are only too happy to express it!’
Text: Maureen Voestermans
’With everything that is going on with us in fashion, we can now say:
“Look, this is what Amsterdam has to o er as well!” ’
For and by researchers
‘The secret research meeting’, as it is sometimes called within the City of Amsterdam. This conjures up an image of a group of men hunched over a wooden table by flickering candlelight discussing all sorts of clandestine matters. But the urban researchers’ meeting, according to its official name, takes a slightly different approach.
Text: Eline Kraaijenvanger
Photography: Bob Bronshoff
About five times a year, researchers from city districts and management teams meet to talk about the latest developments in their work. It is not only pleasant, but also informative; it is an easy, accessible way to keep abreast of each other’s research. Janine van Rooijen (Middelburg, 1969), research advisor at Centrum city district, and Joost Bos (Amsterdam, 1972), researcher at the Housing management team, tell all about it.
What exactly does an urban researchers’ meeting involve?
Bos: ‘Regular ingredients of the meeting include presentations by fellow researchers. As such, you hear about results that may be relevant to your own work and learn about other people’s research experiences and methods. And because we meet so regularly, you need very little time to dive into a topic together.’
Van Rooijen: ‘We always rotate chairs and locations, which is great, because
there is not one owner – we all are. We visit a different district or management team each time. That way, you get to know each other and the city a little better.’
Bos: ‘What I also like are all the conversations that spontaneously emerge. This meeting is the perfect opportunity to take a moment to quickly ask someone: “What about this or that?” I see it as a kind of village pump where you can exchange news with each other.’
What is so secret about it?
Van Rooijen: ‘Well, it is actually not secret at all. Any researcher from the municipality of Amsterdam can join. But the great thing about the researchers’ meeting is that, ever since it was set up in 1990, it has never had an official institutionalised status. Maybe that is where that idea came from. The meeting came about when city districts were introduced in Amsterdam. Researchers from the former Spatial Planning Department were suddenly decentralised but were keen to continue using all the expertise and data available.’
Bos: ‘So it was never an obligation or assignment, but rather an initiative to keep
each other informed. For and by researchers, in other words.’
Both have been going to the researchers’ meeting for years. Van Rooijen first joined as a young girl in 2000; she is now the longest-serving participant and has not only witnessed the bicentenary meeting, but also the festive twenty-fifth anniversary. Funnily enough, she knows Bos from their social geography studies. ‘Joost was in the year below me; we went on a study trip to New York together,’ says Van Rooijen. ‘Years later, in 2010, he approached me at one of the meetings, but I did not immediately recognise him because he had short hair. And now we see each other regularly, we even started working in the same building recently.’
Has the function of the meeting remained the same over the years?
Van Rooijen: ‘I think gathering information was mainly a thing for the first decade. I caught the tail end of it, but digitisation ensured it is no longer necessary.’
Bos: ‘Sharing knowledge and learning from each other, on the other hand, are still
‘I see it as a kind of village pump where you exchange news with each other’
important motives for meeting regularly.’
Van Rooijen: ‘And networking!’
Bos: ‘That too. Of course, we are old hands, but I can imagine that the meeting is a good place to get to know the people as well as the organisation when you start out as a researcher at the municipality of Amsterdam.’
What do you think is the most valuable aspect?
Van Rooijen: ‘The networking, really. The multitude and breadth of topics that are featured. And the critical eye that you develop when listening to other people’s experiences. You can really hone your skills.’
Bos: ‘Another thing I find very valuable is that you are forced to look beyond the boundaries of your own field.’
Van Rooijen: ‘During an evaluation, we were told by several people that they also see the meetings as a form of de-stressing, a moment of calm in the hectic pace of daily work. All you have to do is join and you will automatically be fed all sorts of relevant information. I really liked that.’
Do you use openresearch.amsterdam a lot?
Van Rooijen: ‘Certainly, we put all our research on the platform. We also have a separate workspace that contains our reports and presentations, as well as all the old minutes and archive footage we digitised in 2018. But that space is not open to the public.’
Bos: ‘Of course, it is quite difficult to put all the presentations and everything we discuss in the meeting online. Especially in the beginning, it was mainly a practical solution, a place where we could easily store all our files and share them with each other. There was nowhere else to do that back then.’
Van Rooijen, laughing: ‘I also do not know if we should make our work folder public. It really is our reference work where everyone can find everything. Yes, maybe that is the secret aspect.’
Beyond the borders
Florian Wupperfeld (Frankfurt, 1972) is the CEO of LCD Ventures, a destination innovative company transforming places into destinations through social and cultural impact. Their evidence-based placemaking approach is a cross-sector engagement process building social, cultural and commercial equity for places such as buildings, neighborhoods and cities - because places people love, perform better.
How did you collaborate with the CSO of the municipality of Amsterdam?
‘In Amsterdam, innovation and data is embedded into their culture. Developing a data-based funding framework for so cial impact investment therefore seemed a natural fit. The idea is to raise capital for the public sector and to provide funding for social, civic and cultural organisations, while also accelerating the public sector as a whole. We used blockchain and data to create greater transparancy, accountability, and effectiveness in sustainable investments for the financiers. But honestly, these things are driven by people, and in Amsterdam we found a world leading team around the CSO team to collaborate with us.’
And what positive results has this collaboration yielded?
‘We have inspired more than two hundred administrators and officials led by Amsterdam and the City Science Initiative (CSI), so they can not only work well with private sector partners, but also communicate the benefits of social impact investments across the cities, neighbourhoods and to all stakeholders required in this process to make cities future-proof.’
Pedro Campos Ponce (The Hague, 1979) is coordinator of the EU/International team at the municipality of Amsterdam.
How did you collaborate with the CSO of the municipality of Amsterdam?
‘For 1.5 years, I have been advising Caroline Nevejan on relations with European Union institutions, in particular the CSI. This European network has so far produced three reports, each with a different theme but ultimately focussing on how science and urban policymakers can work together on major urban challenges such as inequality or climate change.’
And what positive results has this collaboration yielded?
‘I am thinking especially of Councillor Sofyan Mbarki’s decision to start working with the Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) criteria, which allow you to map an organisation’s sustainability. I also organised the CSI meeting in Brussels, where municipalities, academics, civil-society organisations, and the business community discuss the role cities can play in implementing European ESG legislation. This was interesting and sometimes complicated, as each sector had its own way of communicating. But in the end, it did result in useful input from different perspectives for the fourth CSI report on ESG. Based partly on this meeting, the councillor decided to further explore Amsterdam’s role as a municipal organisation within ESG.’
Maged Elsamny (Alexandria, 1984) is a researcher at the AMS Institute and TU Delft. ‘At the AMS Institute, we aim to develop sustainable urban solutions by fostering collaboration between academic institutions, private companies, and public organisations. This positions the AMS Institute as a key player in the translation of scientific knowledge into practical solutions for urban challenges, and encourages collaborative efforts for impactful change within the city.’
How did you collaborate with the CSO of the municipality of Amsterdam?
‘In my research on climate risks and property development, I work closely with public and private urban developers. My research intersects with the CSO in exploring the potential of an ESG framework for Amsterdam. Together, we explored how a social taxonomy could help Amsterdam assess the benefits of real estate projects while enabling private actors to measure their social impact. This was done through workshops that took place at the AMS Institute.’
And what positive results has this collaboration yielded?
‘These workshops not only expanded my network, but also provided new information on the perspectives of both private and public actors in the city’s real estate development and their use of the ESG framework. This insight is a crucial part of my research, which aims to develop frameworks for public-private policies to address climate adaptation challenges, an approach that goes beyond the traditional governance structure.’
‘Eighty per cent of the food on offer is unhealthy’
Everyone in Amsterdam dreams of a healthy and active life. But as a municipality, how can you promote the health of your residents, and what role does research play in this process? We talked to Karen den Hertog, head of Healthy Living at the Amsterdam Municipal Health Service.
Text: Kim Scheltes
How are you working on the health of the people of Amsterdam?
‘The interdisciplinary Department of Healthy Living seeks to reduce health inequality in Amsterdam. This is about a healthy, promising start through to vitality in old age. Together with a great many social partners, such as colleagues from other departments within the municipality, knowledge partners, and national players, we focus on everything that plays a role in making healthy choices.’
What are the main health problems in the city?
‘The biggest problem is that not everyone in Amsterdam has a fair shot at health. This
can be seen, for example, in symptoms such as overweight and obesity, addiction to nicotine products, mental health problems, or ageing. As a result, some groups of residents in Amsterdam have up to 10 fewer healthy years of life than others. This mounts up in certain neighbourhoods and districts where other issues also come into play – this is not illogical, as livelihood security, the quality of your home, and chronic stress are immensely important factors for your health.
The same applies to the food environment. International research shows us that neighbourhoods with many residents with lower levels of education culminate in much more fast food. The accumulation of all these factors makes it very difficult for individuals to make healthy choices throughout the day.’
ISTOCK
‘Some groups of residents in Amsterdam have up to 10 fewer healthy years of life than others’
How are you tackling this?
‘We wanted to find out why it is so complicated to live healthy. This called for an innovative approach, so we took to the streets to see and experience the true extent of the pressure of unhealthy food. For example, we walked with mothers to see what unhealthy foods they encounter in their daily lives and mapped how many providers of unhealthy foods there are in the city. That brought into focus very clearly that the range of products here is incredibly unhealthy.
If there is a staircase and an escalator somewhere, most people naturally choose the escalator. When the range of unhealthy choices is large, when unhealthy is the easy choice, that is what we do. Our brain has no desire at all to keep making the more difficult choice; the food industry is quite capable of capitalising on this habit. Eighty per cent of the food on offer in a neighbourhood is unhealthy. Eighty per cent of what is sold on the high street is unhealthy. Eighty per cent of what is sold in the supermarket is unhealthy. And eighty per cent of special offers is unhealthy.
With that knowledge, you start looking at the task differently as a local government. We can organise cooking clubs and explain healthy eating to people, but that does not solve how difficult it is to make healthy choices every day. A different approach is needed to really help people.’
How do you make it easier to make healthy choices?
‘Research has shown that nobody had a good answer as to what you can do about it. There are a great many projects, neighbourhood initiatives, cooking courses, food interventions, and so on, but they are all
focused on the individual. There is very little targeting of the neighbourhood, so that is what we have been focusing on.
An important step we were able to take was to set up the Stop Child Marketing Alliance in Amsterdam, in 2015, to tackle the marketing of unhealthy products to children. But this still does not get down to the source of where the people of Amsterdam get their food, i.e. the retail product range. At one point, doughnut shops and unhealthy coffee shops proliferated in specific areas. They were also concentrated around schools. So, we asked ourselves: how do we make sure this does not happen?
Together with other municipalities, we set up a unique collaboration between health scientists and lawyers to see what we could and should regulate. It became very clear that with our current legal tools, we cannot really do anything against these shops. That this has now been conclusively established is an important first step.
In addition, this interdisciplinary research team created a measurement tool that determines how unhealthy the food on offer in a neighbourhood or street is. Ultimately, we want it to be legally possible for municipalities to regulate the unhealthy food on offer in the city based on this measurement tool. But for that, we need the Dutch government.’
What is the vision for the future of the city?
‘A healthy food environment for everyone in Amsterdam. Our ambition is definitely not to eliminate unhealthy food from the streets, but it is now eighty per cent of what is there. We want to give people the choice again by changing this percentage, because that makes it much easier to live healthily.’
Siegnella Concincion (Curaçao, 1979) is a youth healthcare nurse at the GGD in Amsterdam Zuidoost, as well as a health scientist and a participatory action researcher at the UvA. ‘My research is on the perspective of obese children. In a great deal of research, the focus is primarily on the professionals or parents. Instead, I wanted to find out what it is like for a child to live with obesity. During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, I conducted research with children in Zuidoost. They thought this was quite extraordinary at first – after all, it is not very often that researchers establish a relationship for such a long period of time. But by doing activities with them, such as walking and drawing, slowly building a trusting relationship with them, we were able to discover meaningful insights together. These interactions showed us that obese children can have a totally different perception of their situation than adults. Children attach importance to very different themes, such as belonging to a group, having a negative self-image, experiencing loneliness or boredom...
We also discovered that children have a strong analytical ability and are great at thinking of solutions for their health. Typically, interventions are developed for children, leaving little room for their own input. In daily practice, you see that these interventions, although wellfounded, do not work equally well for all groups because they do not match children’s competences and living environment. My research shows that children should always be involved when it comes to policies that affect their lives.’
Research for all
The
aim of openresearch.amsterdam is clear: to connect researchers inside and outside the municipality. But how do users experience it? Three young researchers from different disciplines share their experiences.
Text: Eline Kraaijenvanger
Photography: Bram Belloni
For young and old
Pavel Getmantsev (Moscow, 1994) started as a trainee at the municipality of Amsterdam. During the two years that he worked there, he visited the platform regularly, not only to gain knowledge, but also to share his own research. ‘I worked with my colleagues to compile the Innovation Agenda 2023, for example, which brings together all the municipality’s innovation projects. The platform also features our research on the accessibility of poverty services for vulnerable people in Amsterdam Oost. My last trainee assignment was to produce an information brochure on the mental health of LGBTQ+ people in Amsterdam.’
In September 2024, Getmantsev started working as a junior researcher for Traffic and Public Space. He has benefited greatly from the research files on the platform. ‘The municipality of Amsterdam is a huge organisation. To work well together, it is essential to be aware of who is working on what. The platform helps with this. So, it is not only useful for experienced colleagues to keep abreast of all developments in the city, but also certainly for people like me, the newcomers, to get to know your own organisation better.’
Exemplary role
Until recently, architect Pinar Sefkatli (Istanbul, 1991) was a PhD student at the UvA, but she has now successfully completed her research on rhythms in the city. Once she helped set up the platform, now she enjoys sharing her findings there. ‘In science, publishing your results can take a very long time. Before your article is online, you are two years down the road. In addition, the projects I worked on were often interdisciplinary as well as transdisciplinary, where we not only collaborated with researchers from different disciplines, but also with professionals from the field. So, my research not only had a scientific but also a social purpose. I mainly used the platform to provide interim updates to all stakeholders. This not only reinforced the research process but was also very useful for myself: it helped me maintain overview and gave structure to my project.’
‘Such a platform also forces researchers to think about other ways of sharing their results. For me, open research is very much about visibility. Science always starts with social relevance, and if we do not share what we are doing, it is very easy to underestimate the importance of our work. The platform is a good example of how we could change that.’
‘More than we think’
In early 2021, Elisabeth IJmker (Amstelveen, 1992) was installed on the city council for GroenLinks Amsterdam, where she is working hard for a safe and inclusive (digital) city. Before that, she worked for the municipality of Amsterdam as a civil servant and was also involved in setting up the platform. ‘It was great fun to witness how openresearch.amsterdam progressed from initial idea to a first version. In my current position as councillor, I still visit the platform regularly. It is nice to have an additional source of information.’
‘There is, of course, a lot of research taking place in Amsterdam – about the city and with the city, but it is all quite fragmented. The idea that all that information is now collected and linked together in one place is incredibly valuable. It shows how much knowledge already exists. We humans, especially in politics, tend to do things over and over again: start yet another study, set up yet another knowledge centre... But we already know so much more than we think. A next step is how to bridge all the available knowledge and information for the creation of better policies.’
New Science-tips
Openresearch.amsterdam’s researchers and topics can also be found in bookstores and online. New Scientist reviews.
Rhythms
of the city
In Caroline Nevejan’s book We Are Rhythm, readers are invited to explore their personal rhythms and those of the world around them. These captivating stories have now been made into a podcast, accompanied by music and sounds that let you experience the rhythms of life.
We Are Rhythm Listen now on Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts
Life defining
TDhe latest game, our clothes, the bicycle, train or tram that takes us from A to B... Everything around us that is man-made is technology. The new Technium exhibition on the completely renovated second floor of Amsterdam’s most fun museum answers a wide variety of questions. From ‘How does a bicycle start moving?’ to what it takes to produce T-shirts sustainably.
Technium, Unravel the technology around you NEMO Science Museum Amsterdam
utch illustrator Joost Swarte’s success would have been impossible without his great talent. But what were the key moments that determined the course of his life? On 20 November 2024, Das Mag released the book Sleutelmomenten by Ward Wijndelts, senior editor at the CSO, on the extraordinary life of this internationally renowned artist.
This book by photographer Kadir van Lohuizen is a must-read. With unique infographics, facts, and figures, he manages to chart the global food crisis in detail.
Sleutelmomenten Ward Wijndelts
Food for Thought
podcast
book
exhibition
Discover the new exposition in science museum NEMO, where you learn everything about technology.
DIGIDAAN
Kadir van Lohuizen
The creator: Wendy Bos
In the podcast Stokstaartjes, Wendy Bos takes children between six and 12 on a journey of discovery through the world of science. She is guided by the children’s curiosity and takes them on visits to the age of dinosaurs, space, and ancient Egypt.
Text: Lisa Pais
How did you come up with the idea for this podcast?
‘I started out as a scientist. But although I found my field, medical ethics, very interesting, I was also interested in 88 other things. At openresearch.amsterdam, I can delve into a different topic every day and make science available to policymakers as a member of the platform’s editorial board. With this podcast, I am basically doing the same thing, but for children.’
Why did you make this podcast specifically for children?
‘I see children as little researchers. Children have a freedom of thought, which unfortunately they often lose as they get older. We should cherish that freedom, but also their curiosity and their drive to understand and explore.’
What do you want to achieve?
‘I think it is important for children to hear that their questions are relevant; that they have the same questions as scientists. That is why the research is done
live in the episode. The children ask a question and together we go somewhere to find answers. That is how we ended up at the ARTIS Planetarium in Amsterdam and the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden. A podcast is free and easy to access, making it a suitable medium. It makes science available to all children.’
If you were to make more episodes, what would they be about?
‘The North Pole is at the top of
my list. You can talk about the animals there, the ice melting, and the northern lights. Or, for example, the Wadden Sea, which is a bit closer to home. I like choosing a theme you can travel to, so to speak.’
What topics were you interested in as a child?
‘I was a huge dinosaur lover. I collected dinosaurs, read dinosaur books, and went to museums. But even then, I wanted to know all sorts of things about different topics. When we went to the woods, in no time I would be crouching down to study a beetle. But dinosaurs were still at the very top of my list.’
podcast
In the podcast ‘Stokstaartjes’, Wendy Bos answers questions from curious children.
