This February 9th, LDE Centre for Sustainability hosted the kick-off of the Interdisciplinary Thesis Labs 2021/2022. In these labs students work on a sustainability challenge set by an external organisation. In a half year lab program from February until July 2022, they will gather insights from insight into the interdisciplinary context of the challenge and how they can contribute to this challenge as a young leader.
With 36 students from 5 universities and 14 different masters programs, the Interdisciplinary Thesis Labs of LDE Centre for Sustainability aim to challenge students, researchers and societal organisations to work in an interdisciplinary environment: deal with other perspectives, complexity, and diversity, to think in systems and to bridge the gap between thinking and doing.
This year, labs are organized on Sustainable Hospitals (in collaboration with Medical Delta), Sustainable Horticulture (in collaboration with World Horti Centre), Circular Aviation (in collaboration with NLR), and the Circular Building Hub (in collaboration with the province Zuid-Holland, municipalities Leiden and Alphen aan de Rijn, EBDA and Bouwend Nederland). During the kick-off, students and coordinators from all four labs came together to talk about the complexity of these sustainability transitions.
Following an introduction of the four labs by René Kleijn, three young sustainability leaders in the field of hospitals, circular building environment and horticulture were invited to talk about these challenges in their line of work. Else de Ridder, founder of Green Care Academy and MINT zorgadvies, talked about the many possibilities, but also challenges that lie within transitioning to more sustainable healthcare. Eva Dijkema, Green Innovater at ProRail and teacher at the Industrial Design Engineering Faculty of TU Delft told us more about the challenges of working for a big company like ProRail, and how small changes there can often have a big impact. Bram Tijmons is CEO and founder of PATS, a company for automatic insect control in Greenhouse Horticulture that aims to make horticulture more sustainable by replacing conventional insect control methods. The enthusiastic and interactive atmosphere contributed to an inspiring afternoon. Students (and coordinators) had many questions for the panel members about how they ended up working in the field of sustainability, and the challenges they often face. But the panel members did not only talk about the difficulties in their line of work, they also shared their often optimistic vision for the future in sustainability.
After talking to the young sustainability leaders, students were able to get to know each other in their individual labs and discuss how their different fields of interest can be combined in their specific lab. After the kick-off, students will meet bi-weekly for in-depth sessions, workshops and visiting important locations for their sustainability challenges.
We look back on a successful and inspiring afternoon and are looking forward to the innovative and interdisciplinary ideas the students will come up with in the next half year!
