Newsletter: Incubator Grant call, Climate Exam, exhibition, events and funding ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Pathways to Sustainability

With spring’s arrival, we’re excited to launch a new round of Incubator Grants, offering inter- and transdisciplinary teams of UU scholars and possible external partners the opportunity to collaborate on innovative transdisciplinary ideas. At the heart of these Incubators are two key principles: ‘not-(yet)-knowing’ and ‘trust the process.’

As Pathways to Sustainability, we encourage everyone to step beyond their areas of expertise and invite diverse perspectives to the table. What skills and knowledge are needed to tackle the challenge effectively? Are all aspects of the challenge understood?

Making real impact and meaningful change is what we strive for. You'll find different ways to achieve that in this newsletter, such as an exhibition about critical minerals, the climate exam, several funding opportunies and dialogues. We believe that meaningful impact arises when people come together to explore complex puzzles and challenges. Because real change happens when we work together.

Pathways to Sustainability Core Team

New Incubator Round

Incubator Grant 2025
Application deadline: 26 May

Do you have an idea for a transdisciplinary, challenge-based project? It is very easy to apply for funding!

The Incubator Grant (8k) is our funding instrument that aims to invest in community building, by offering interdisciplinary teams the opportunity to collaborate on innovative transdisciplinary ideas.

During the Incubator process, we guide and support teams in the further development of their consortia and ideas. Incubator teams may prepare applications for subsequent Signature Project Grant (50-150k for a maximum period of 24 months).

For the 2025 application round, we invite teams to send in their idea by 26 May. Successfully pre-selected Incubators will take center stage during the Kickstarter workshop on 16 October. The selected Incubator teams will be assisted in targeting participants (UU colleagues and external stakeholders) for the Kickstarter workshop sessions. This event will offer an opportunity for co-creation and to build your project team, as we believe that such an open process is key to transformative learning.

Critical Materials and Critical Stories

The Resourcefulness Signature project team is organizing a series of discussions and a participatory exhibition through which they will explore the issues surrounding the new gold rush for critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel. These are essential for smartphones, solar panels, and other technologies considered essential for modern life and the energy transition.

In Europe, these materials are seen as critical for the transition to a better future; for some countries and communities, they are strategic resources for economic development; and for others, they represent (new) forms of extraction linked to violence and the reproduction of a (post)colonial world order. Hope to see you there!

Climate Exam - Klimaatexamen

After a very successful first edition, a Climate Exam will be organized again this year (in Dutch). Test your knowledge on climate (change) and join the subsequent networking drinks with other people who want to make a difference. There will be participants from governments, sustainable companies and scientific institutes.

The Climate Exam will be held at many locations this year. Registration is easy, just search for the location where you want to take the climate exam on their website and register. Is your desired location not yet listed? Then organize it yourself and sign up as an organizer! Pathways to Sustainability is one of the partners of this impactful event.

Sustainability news

Sea level game creates climate awareness among young people

Power, politics and ecology: a conversation with Tatiana Acevedo Guerrero

Daan van Uhm appointed Professor of Environmental Crime at Open University

Major project launched: improving climate models with historical data

Students from the Young Future Food Movement take the initiative

A Year of Change for Future Food Utrecht

BioCliVE quantifies how biodiversity will contribute to future grassland resilience under climate change

Project Aanwaaiers: gather data with your class and explore biodiversity

Introducing the Young Future Food Movement!

Call for Abstracts - Conceptualizing Ecocide Conference

1.4 million euros for Dutch research into impact of deep-sea mining

‘We need a forward-looking approach to Climate Finance’

Green walls can combat urban heat and help biodiversity

Innovative Utrecht contribution to methane cycle research in Arctic lakes

Meet our new project manager

Since the end of last month, Sonja Döpp has joined the Pathways to Sustainability Core Team as project manager. She will be the first point of contact for Pathways projects and is responsible for the implementation of our funding instruments, including Seed Funding and the Incubator and Signature Project Grants.

As the Coordinator of the Transdisciplinary Field Guide, Sonja looks forward to working with the community to further develop this valuable knowledge hub and to make the knowledge and tools easily accessible and applicable to everyone involved in transdisciplinary research, both within and outside of Utrecht University.

Feel free to reach out if you have ideas, suggestions, or specific needs to improve the guide!

Events with Professor Harini Nagendra

To celebrate Professor Nagendra’s honorary doctorate and draw inspiration from her work, we are hosting a series of exciting events.

Public Lecture by Harini Nagendra: Ecologically Smart Cities: Mapping human-nature interactions in cities of the Global South

Tuesday 25 March, 13:00-15:00

Creative writing workshop - Write Where You Are: The Art of Setting in Storytelling
Tuesday 25 March, 15:30-17:00

Dies Dialogue - Seeds of a healthy planet

Wednesday 26 March, invitation only

Symposium - Urban pathways to planetary health
(Invitation only. Would you like to be invited, please send us an email with your motivation)

Thursday 27 March, 10.00-16.00

Unfortunately we had to cancel the Healthy Planet Booster Grants Lottery. Other funding opportunities are listed below.

Funding opportunities

Signature Project Grant
The Signature Project Grant is our instrument to spur radical innovation in university practices with the aim of enhancing our impact. Signature Projects are challenge-based, interdisciplinary in nature (preferably cross-community) and directed at fostering the radical innovation that PtS seeks to achieve.
Application deadline: 15 April

Pathways to Sustainability seed funding: open call 2025
With Pathways to Sustainability seed funding, we aim to stimulate interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary interactions that can 'plant a seed' and contribute to creating impact.
Application deadline: 16 June

Transforming cities community funding
The Transforming Cities community stimulates cutting edge knowledge exchange and collaborations in sustainable urban transformations to advance new ways of thinking as a basis for radical innovation and social change. With this funding we stimulate bottom up initiatives for inter- and transdisciplinary activities in both research and education.
Pitch your idea at 20 March

Water Climate and Future Deltas community funding
The Water, Climate and Future Deltas community is a platform for scientists and external stakeholders to jointly work on ensuring resilient, sustainable deltas all over the world. With this funding we stimulate bottom up initiatives for inter- and transdisciplinary activities in both research and education.
Pitch your idea at 3 April.

Visiting Fellows - Research Stay in Montpellier
The University of Montpellier has launched a call for applications for the "Visiting Fellowship" programme. In 2026, scholars from UU are invited to spend several months in Montpellier to work on the governance of transitions.
Application deadline: 30 June

New grants for research projects in the SIGs of ADS
This call is intended to financially support interfaculty initiatives (UU and UMCU) that fit within our objectives, such as: Interfaculty research projects aimed at applying or developing data science techniques, seed money for the preparation of interdisciplinary grant applications, and much more.
Application deadline: 22 May

These colleagues were spotted in the media (most items are in Dutch):

Daan van Uhm on NPO Radio 1 about the banned trade in wild pangolins: “Usually the fines are duly paid, but the trade just continues.”
Chris Backes on NOS.nl about the scientific basis for an increased nitrogen emission threshold: message of Petersen's report is “neither correct nor substantiated”.
Irene Monasterolo in a CEPR-podcast on European climate bonds to finance the costs of climate change.
Sanne Akerboom on NOS.nl on Tweede Kamer decision to discontinue regional energy strategies: “I fear a period of substantial chaos. Provinces and municipalities will have to reinvent the wheel.”
Sanne Bours on FD.nl: Hoogwaardig recyclen van afval lukt Nederland nog nauwelijks
Tjalling de Haas on Spraakmakers NPO Radio1: De Alpen hebben het zwaar te verduren: 'Op een gegeven moment ga je een kantelpunt over'
Joost Raessens on Kijkmagazine.nl: ‘De game-industrie stoot evenveel uit als heel Nederland’