nieuws

Awards, Translocal Movements and Debating the Future of Europe

13 december, 2018

The nominees for the #EuroNederlander2018 Award are selected – and Flor Avelino, assistent professor and academic director of DRIFT’s Transition Academy, is nominated! Read more about the award and Flors work and vote for your favourite nominee. 

The yearly #EuroNederlander award of the European Movement Netherlands aims to encourage constructive debate on the future of Europe. Awards are always awkward, even more so when they’re individual awards for collective efforts. I was nominated for the EuroNederlander2018 Award based on the research that we did with colleagues from DRIFT and the TRANSIT research project on translocal social movements, and the contribution of these movements and researchers to the public debate through e.g. the Manifesto for Transformative Social Innovation.

Everybody can vote for their favorite nominee until the 16th of December via this website.

While asking people to “vote for me” feels rather silly, to say the least, I have little scruples when it comes to promoting our research on transformative social innovation and sustainability transitions, and even less when it comes to promoting the work that numerous social movements are doing towards a more sustainable and fair world. These movements are not only protesting against existing systems, but also creating and implementing alternative new ways of doing, thinking and organizing (see a list of examples here). They are ‘translocal’ in that they are both locally rooted and globally connected, linking communities and promoting international solidarity while also appreciating local identities and traditions. I am convinced that these movements deserve far more attention in the media and in political debates, as I have elaborately argued in this blog.

If you agree that this is relevant, please vote!

As a researcher rather than a politician I cannot resist pointing out that the other nominees are a fascinating bunch, no less than the prizewinning author & professor Luuk van Middelaar, BNR radio journalist Jesse Pinster, the thinkthank Climate Focus, and even an entire political movement: Volt Nederland. You can probably do the math yourself and figure out why voting for me would be more of a symbolic act, but then again the whole award thing is mostly symbolic (there is no money prize involved in case you’re wondering :-)).

Last but not least: far more important than this or any other award is for everybody to get involved in the debate about the future of Europe, to support emerging pan-European and international movements such as #Diem25 and #ProgressiveInternational, and to vote in the upcoming European elections 23 – 26 May 2019.

Read more
To learn more about transformative social innovation and how this is relevant for Europe: