Our mission is to make the Netherlands smarter. In 2012, we did this by strengthening the innovative power of teachers, students and civil servants; by making databases and heritage collections available; by challenging and supporting social innovators; and by organising lots of learning events like the Social Innovation Safari and the Wicked Series.
We constantly ask ourselves: what is smart? In 2012 smart meant: open, available, creative, multidisciplinary, bottom-up, focused on solutions and, above all, social.
This is a summary (in random order) of our activities, successes, and a few failures. Perhaps our biggest success is that we keep asking ourselves questions. What actually is success when we talk about social innovation? How do you recognise it and, particularly, how do you realise it? Finding answers to these questions will remain our main focus in 2013. You can also read our editorials (mainly Dutch).
Click the bottom right arrows to continue.
In 2012 Kennisland and the National Archives ensured that as many as 144 thousand images of the ANEFO press photo collection could be reused as open culture data. During the Open Culture Data competition 2012, eight wonderful apps were developed with this data. Tijdbalk.nl was the winner.
2 / 30
Image: Bilsen, Joop van / NL-HaNA, Anefo / Birthday Her Royal Highness Princess Wilhelmina boy brings flowers inside / neg. strips, 1945-1989, 2.24.01.05, component number 911-5503/ CC-BY-SA
Between 7 November and 7 December, we looked for the most radical innovators in the Netherlands. For people who take risks, are non-conformist, want to make the world a better place, and have a new approach for complex issues. 400 people applied. On 6 March 2013 the selection was announced and Vrij Nederland magazine presented a special on New Radicals.
Read more (Dutch only)
3 / 30
Cover of Vrij Nederland special on 6 March
After an intense journey of eight months, students of the HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht and the Utrecht University presented Expedition 2020: the teacher training of the future. They showed with their enthusiasm, energy, experience and expertise that it is possible to realise better training by working together with current teachers.
See also this publication (Dutch only)
4 / 30
This quote from keynote speaker David Bollier exactly represents the motivation and the basic question of Economies of the Commons 3. Kennisland put together this two-day international conference which was a great success with almost 300 participants, 7 different inspirational keynotes and over 30 presentations and panels.
Read more (Dutch only)
5 / 30
Kennisland again provided the secretary of the Topteam Creative Industry in 2012. 2012 finally saw the birth of the creative sector's top institute for innovation. And, since May, the Creative Council functions as the sector’s own strategic advisory committee.
6 / 30
photo: Liamfm CC-BY-SA
30 international social innovators, 6 social challenges, and 1 intense week. That was the basis for Kennisland’s Social Innovation Safari 2012. One of the organisations that brought in a social challenge left saying, “You’ve empowered us!” This edition was a co-production with De Baak.
7 / 30
As one of the founding partners in the Open Culture Data network, Kennisland has worked together with 22 Dutch data providers from the cultural sector to open up 1,641,247 content items (images, video, audio, text) and 4,582,591 metadata records as open data. Open Culture Data received the Trailblazer Award of the EPSI (European Public Sector Information) platform.
8 / 30
We piloted the Onderwijs Pioniers (Education Pioneers) approach in secondary schools and convinced teachers and stakeholders of its real value. In fact, stakeholders got so enthused at giving teachers the opportunity to design and implement solutions in their schools, that the approach will return annually in primary, secondary and vocational education.
Read more (Dutch only)
9 / 30
The Slimmernetwerk (Smarter Network) community now gathers over 3,300 people and shakes up the government from the inside. We help network members navigate this bumpy road by linking with other organisations, networks, managers and directors. Slimmernetwerk’s growth makes it one of the crucial connectors in the public sector.
Read more (Dutch only)
10 / 30
Together with the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, National Archive and Open State Foundation, Kennisland challenged developers to create applications that expand audience reach and engagement of arts and culture. From multiple hackathons, 27 apps were submitted in the Open Culture Data Competition. First prize went to Muse App, which allows you to create your own work of art with cut-outs from world famous old masters.
Read more (Dutch only)
11 / 30
150 Schools in the Netherlands immersed themselves in innovative experiments of the InnovatieImpuls Onderwijs (Innovation Impulse Education). In 2012 the first fruits were reaped: teachers developed 15 e-classes for the science subjects which will be used in 2013 to make education more attractive and enjoyable for students. Teachers also get more time to guide students’ learning. In 2012, 30 teachers and 14 science students at the VU University Amsterdam were trained to support the e-classes.
Read more (Dutch only)
12 / 30
Image: Jan Jaap Wietsma shows how ‘lab on a chip’ works in Video Lessons
Professionals and amateurs remixed found and digitised film material from the EYE collection into 75 captivating short films for the video remix competition Celluloid Remix. Thanks to EYE and Images for the Future, these loose film ends got a second life. Check out the winning remix.
Read more (Dutch only)
13 / 30
Kennisland, Pakhuis de Zwijger, Waag Society and other organisations active in the field of social innovation joined forces and created SINN: the Social Innovation Network of the Netherlands. During the first SI Meet up over 100 interested people gathered to learn, share knowledge and inspire each other.
Read more (Dutch only)
14 / 30
Kennisland advised the Rijksmuseum on an open data strategy for the wonderful new website Rijksstudio.nl which was launched in October 2012. This new website is an impressive display of the possibility of making digitised collections available for reuse and generate revenue by selling high quality prints at the same time.
Read more (Dutch only)
15 / 30
View on the Golden Bend in the Herengracht from the east, Gerrit Adriaensz. Berckheyde, 1671 - 1672, Rijksmuseum
In 2012 Slimmernetwerk (Smarter Network) members set up 13 Doetanks (Do tanks). The Doetanks run experiments that are then promoted throughout the public sector. The Doetank ‘Train your colleague’, for example, culminated in a nationwide program and the Doetank ‘Knowledge Preservation’ experimented with a method to make visible staff with specialised knowledge within public organisations.
Read more about Doetanks (Dutch only)
16 / 30
How do we address regional educational issues, identified by teachers and schools themselves? That was the challenge for the Bendecafé meeting of the InnovatieImpuls Onderwijs (IIO) (Innovation Impulse Education) in 2012. And that worked out in Echt (Limburg) where IIO organised a meeting together with the Connect College. In 5 open spaces, 120 teachers worked on their own questions about ‘Learning in the 21st Century’.
Read more (Dutch only)
17 / 30
On 4 October the European Union adopted a directive establishing a legal framework aimed at improving access to and digitisation of orphan works across the EU. Unfortunately the directive is a legislative train wreck that fails to make any substantial improvements to the situation heritage institutions who are engaged in digitisation efforts find themselves. Kennisland is a long time advocate of reforming copyright to open up access to digitised cultural heritage, but sadly, the directive is another missed opportunity.
18 / 30
image: Thalita Carvalho CC-BY
The main challenges of the St. Antonius Hospital are: capacity planning and deployment of personnel, improved collaboration with primary care and quality assurance through evidence-based practice. Kennisland supported (in cooperation with Nyenrode Business University) the managers of the hospital in their search for creative solutions to these tough problems. Ideas have been developed as prototypes, such as a ‘flexdex’ in which everyone in the hospital can quickly find who is available in case of emergency or special jobs.
19 / 30
image: Alex E. Proimos CC-BY
On the national IIO day participants in workshops could get video lessons and an e-class, watch Students for Students videos, learn more on e-didactics of Education Teams and the SlimFit Kit was presented. This allowed the 150 schools participating in the InnovatieImpuls Onderwijs (IIO) to exchange experiences and knowledge. And this was the moment when the 5 innovative concepts were shared with the rest of the education field.
Read more (Dutch only)
20 / 30
image: Rutger Gast of the Caland Lyceum giving an E-class
What can you actually do as an organisation with a large, difficult problem that is not easy to solve, such as the economic crisis, or an aging society? Kennisland and Hivos organised The Wicked Series: a three part series on the dynamics of ‘Wicked Problems’. Together with 60 participants, we delved into problem analysis, innovation strategies, and change approaches to complex issues using case studies from the Netherlands, India, Uganda and Greece.
Read more (Dutch only)
21 / 30
image: Marieke Wijntjes
Kennisland has worked with Europeana to prompt a paradigm shift within Europe's cultural heritage sector. On 1 September 2012, after 3 years of intense discussions with Europeana's data providers, 20 million metadata records were released under a CC0 waiver, free for anyone to reuse.
22 / 30
image: Friedrich Preller, public domain
In collaboration with researchers from the European Centre for Living Technology (ECLT) and the University of Warsaw Kennisland develops a new method for dynamic, real-time evaluation of social innovation processes (‘Emergence by Design’). We’ve prototyped the method with Kennisland’s Onderwijs Pioniers (Educationg Pioneers) project, resulting in new insights into how Pioneers innovate, and how to better support them.
Read more (Dutch only)
23 / 30
The law on Special Needs Education is not yet in operation, however, Kennisland and the Kafka Brigade are busy preventing unnecessary bureaucracy. We brought all parties concerned together, from ministry to parent, to jointly search for indicators of unnecessary bureaucracy. It went beyond naming all the paperwork and was about the essence of Special Needs Education: quality education for every student.
Read more (Dutch only)
24 / 30
image: superkimbo CC-BY-NC-SA
Together with the HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht and LOOK (Open University) Kennisland was the engine of an ambitious program to improve the quality of teachers in the Caribbean Netherlands. Partly at the request of the islands themselves, the focus shifted from professionalisation of all teachers (in co-creation with the teachers) to training under-qualified teachers. Because of this shift, the project was no longer relevant for Kennisland and with pain in our hearts we said farewell.
25 / 30
image: David Pedler
Kennisland is doing well, partly because we are more and more active on a European level. In 2012, we participated in four European research projects. To reflect our European identity, we’re no longer using the names ‘Stichting Nederland Kennisland’ and ‘Knowledgeland’. Instead, we simply call ourselves ‘Kennisland’.
26 / 30
image: EU barcode flag © OMA
Even before McKinsey came with peer review as a solution to Dutch education, Kennisland supported the Avans University of Applied Sciences to enable professionals to learn from each other. Out of this collaboration came three sustainable interventions that have increased the amount of interaction, talent exchange, and know-how within schools.
Read more (Dutch only)
27 / 30
image: batigolix CC-BY-NC-SA
In January, the former minister of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation, Maxime Verhagen, handed out the prizes for the first national open data competition ‘Apps for The Netherlands’. The winner was Vistory, an app made by Glimworm-IT, which displays historical images and movies linked to a physical location. The app reuses data from the Open Images platform, which is developed by the Institute for Sound and Vision and Kennisland.
Read more (Dutch only)
28 / 30
image: Arne Kuilman
Every month, Kennisland invites inspiring people to learn from and to reflect on our own work. So far we’ve discussed topics as governmental power, healthcare as a laboratory for social innovation, and the importance of the commons. Our Holland Room was packed every time and the delicious cocktails weren’t the only reason for that!
Read more (Dutch only)
29 / 30
subscribe to the Kennisland Newsletter (Dutch only)
30 / 30