The grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) is a top-up grant for ongoing research projects in the Open Competition or Talent Programme, to explore unforeseen opportunities for societal impact that have emerged during the curiosity-driven project.
Impact of new methods to collect data
For the UNICA-project, led by RSM Professor Tine De Moor, the knowledge broker will play a crucial role in identifying relevant information for the citizen collective movement. This will be done by initially assessing the data that needs to be collected. Previous research has shown that bottom-up organisations often lack the necessary capacity and expertise to collect, classify, and analyse data in a structured manner. This results in incomplete and less useful overviews of the development of citizen collectives, which also obstructs collaboration with researchers. The knowledge broker can provide support in this area as well.
With the help of the knowledge broker, better quality data will be collected on the development of citizen collectives across various sectors. This will assist umbrella organisations and other stakeholders in better understanding this movement, improving their practices, using resources more efficiently, and formulating more targeted policies. Additionally, the data collection strategy will enable future researchers to compare developments across sectors over time.
The project will strengthen the position of citizen collectives and lay a solid foundation for future research and policy. Ultimately, the aim is to build a future-proof network of citizen collectives in the Netherlands.
