We have started! More than 4 years after Olaf Waals and Rutger de Graaf had their first meeting about the initial research idea, and years of consortium building and proposal writing, we had the official kickoff of our research project Floating Future today. It was a unique day which brought together a rare combination of scientific domains, businesses, governments and NGO’s around the topic of upscaling floating structures to create multifunctional climate proof space. In the next 5 years our consortium of 44 organizations will work on achieving societal and scientific breakthroughs in the field of floating solutions by applying participatory action research for ecological, industrial and societal win-wins.
Thank you very much Gemeente Rotterdam and Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences for hosting us. Thanks Christiaan Weiler for organizing an amazing co-creation event at the Floating Pavilion Rotterdam with input from our workpackage leaders including Tjeerd Bouma, Margo Van Den Brink and Floor Spaargaren and action research task leaders Floris Boogaard and Jeroen Rijke. Our project coordinator Joep van der Zanden but also Vera Bauman, Arnoud Molenaar of the city of Rotterdam and Maaike Spuij of NWO (Dutch Research Council) gave great presentations. Thanks Lasse Bech Knudsen and Serina Jansen-Strik for your help with the organization.
