Many students find the world complex and challenging. This project enhances their well-being by establishing a Change Making Community of Action (CMCoA), where students, teachers, and societal partners collaborate to make complex problems manageable. The community builds on the existing Change Making module at the University of Amsterdam (uva.nl/changemaking), which focuses on systemic change and helps students develop skills to handle complexity. As a result, students feel more resilient and inspired.

The origin of life is one of sciences greatest unsolved puzzles. Several theories exist, but there is no consensus. PRELIFE is built on an interdisciplinary approach in which astronomy, biology. chemistry, computer science, earth and planetary sciences, education science, mathematics, and physics work together on the question How and under what conditions did life arise on Earth, and how common are these conditions in the universe? We aim to involve everyone interested in our research through the development of a teaching methodology, lessons for primary and secondary schools, collaborations with artists and museums.

During Placemaking, students join forces with local stakeholders to collectively improve UvA campus areas. Students immerse themselves in the area. Based on the insights gained, they carry out an intervention. Because the neighborhood is involved, the intervention gains support and is often followed up. Moreover, students pass on the lessons they learn to the local community and new student teams. Through this so-called relay’ element, Placemaking also has a sustainable network of local stakeholders. Over 90 student projects can be viewed on the online Placemaking platform for anyone interested in the campus (development) or the educational initiative.

The project Local Big Histories aims to develop a student project that will be used in big history courses and will connect big history to local histories. Big history courses provide students with an overview of how Earth, life and human societies in general became the way they are today. This means they provide students with a type of history that all people in the world share and that can foster the development of a global identity. It is not always clear to students, however, how such a global history and identity are connected to local histories and identities, that for many people also remain important. In this project, we aim to connect these types of histories and identities by stimulating students to reflect on how their own local histories and identities have all been shaped in unique ways by shared global processes and as a result can be linked to a shared global identity. We will do so by asking students from different parts of the world, including students at different universities, to collaborate on their own local big histories. We will also ask them to jointly present their results on a public layered world map that will hopefully encourage others to adopt a similar approach.

Despite the need for educational innovation and successful examples, embedding the innovation into the organization remains challenging. This research aims to identify working principles for sustainable educational innovation, through learning history case studies. Using insights from these case studies, together with teachers and other stakeholders from award-winning innovations, a Learning History Lab will work toward an Innovation Sustainability Framework, with tools to support sustaining educational innovations. By understanding the interaction between innovative teams and educational organizations and developing appropriate tools, the research aims to increase sustainable educational innovation.