Unusual Suspects Festival
Marlieke Kieboom is sharing her insights on knowledge co-production between policy, practice and academia in Dutch social innovation labs at the ‘Unusual Suspects Festival’, a gathering of social innovation policy makers, researchers and practitioners in Glasgow, Scotland.
There’s something in the air in Scotland. The ferment of the referendum catalysed a discussion about the country’s values and aspirations. This momentum continued through the recent general election, where the country’s distinctiveness was apparent at the polls. The ensuing debate about the kind of society Scotland wants, and how to get there, has mobilised communities and extended beyond the reach of the usual suspects.
And so, for three days in October – SIX, Glasgow Caledonian University, Nesta and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation will bring a range of ‘unusual suspects’ together from across Scotland and around the world. The festival will feature a collection of interlinked talks, walks, debates, music and discussion, that will draw out the ways in which collaboration and social innovation can work in sync to address some of the most difficult societal challenges.
The festival grew out of a frustration of attending events and constantly seeing the same people and having the same conversations. So SIX, Collaborate and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation hosted the festival for the first time in London in 2014 to enable a different conversation to happen. They wanted to hear from the ‘unusual suspects’ because a conversation with someone with a different perspective helps us to imagine new possibilities and develop different outcomes. The distributed model of working with different partners ensures hearing from the unusual suspects and encourages new collaborations to happen. This festival features 22 events over 3 days with 35 different contributing organisations.
Marlieke Kieboom is guest speaker at the opening reception of the festival and participates in workshops about establishing new links between academia, policy makers and practitioners. In her reflections she will use her day-to-day experiences in social innovation labs across the Netherlands. In these labs she establishes knowledge co-production between citizens, policy makers, academics, teachers and professionals over social challenges by introducing Kennisland’s knowledge co-production methodology Feed Forward Stories++Feed ForwardRead Marlieke’s long read about Feed Forward Stories that was recently published by URBACT.. What is needed to move forward?
See the festival website to see what’s on and sign up to events. If you have any further questions or are interested in getting involved, please contact Jordan Junge.
Video: Chouette Films for SIX.
