The Leuven Gymkhana: Transdisciplinary Action Research Questioning Socially Innovative Multi-Actor Collaborations in COVID Times

Literatures on social innovation, collective agency and multi-actor collaboration stress the importance of action research and joint problematization to research ongoing processes of collaboration and transformation to advance both theory and practice in these fields. In this paper we analyze our experience building a transdisciplinary action research (TAR) trajectory between 2020 and 2021 to investigate socially innovative multi-actor collaborations (IMACs) and urban governance innovation trajectories in the city of Leuven (Belgium). We specifically focus on (1) how we involved a wide array of researchers, stakeholders and practitioners in the TAR trajectory;(2) how we enacted joint problematization and action, ensuring that all facilitative leadership roles were taken care of;(3) the challenges that the specific COVID context posed on TAR and the innovative tools and approaches we took to adapt under such circumstances;and (4) how our TAR contributed to the ongoing IMACs in Leuven. Discussing our experience in relation to issues raised in action research literature, we summarize key dimensions, roles and tasks necessary in TAR to enable facilitative leadership and multi-actor collaboration and successfully drive joint problematization and transformative change. We conclude that our TAR trajectory in Leuven became a case study of IMAC in itself, and so learnings from our TAR directly dialogue with and inform our empirical analysis of the performance of IMACs too. Through this realization and the analysis of our experience, we get to broader question the role of action research and researchers in urban governance innovation.

Making pandemics big: On the situational performance of Covid-19 mathematical models.

In this paper, we trace how mathematical models are made 'evidence enough' and 'useful for policy'. Working with the interview accounts of mathematical modellers and other scientists engaged in the UK Covid-19 response, we focus on two weeks in March 2020 prior to the announcement of an unprecedented national lockdown. A key thread in our analysis is how pandemics are made 'big'. We follow the work of one particular device, that of modelled 'doubling-time'. By following how modelled doubling-time entangles in its assemblage of evidence-making, we draw attention to multiple actors, including beyond models and metrics, which affect how evidence is performed in relation to the scale of epidemic and its policy response. We draw attention to: policy; Government scientific advice infrastructure; time; uncertainty; and leaps of faith. The 'bigness' of the pandemic, and its evidencing, is situated in social and affective practices, in which uncertainty and dis-ease are inseparable from calculus. This materialises modelling in policy as an 'uncomfortable science'. We argue that situational fit in-the-moment is at least as important as empirical fit when attending to what models perform in policy.

Postmodern neoliberal discourses vs postfeminist theories and practices

The aim of the article is considered the conceptual reconstruction of the relationship between postmodern feminism and the notional field of contemporary neoliberalism. The analytical methods used were based on the assertion that the complexity of textual interventions requires interdisciplinary approaches. The findings and results of the research carried out accentuate that COVID-19 has contributed greatly to the contradictions of the current global landscape in the contexts of neoliberalism and feminism. Feminism asserts as a discourse that the conceptual apparatus of neoliberalism has not served its goals;in fact, postfeminism has not yet chosen its route in the neoliberal context. The assumption that women cannot win their "vindication battle" in the world where "the game is fixed" continues to be taken as an axiom, even though the coronavirus pandemic causes some observers to proclaim the return of influential governments and social contracts. The latter accentuates the role of female representation in neoliberal social, cultural, and political discourses at the global level.

Student Problem Assessment (SPA) in the Covid-19 Condition in terms of 10 Sub Areas of Life Problems (10-ALP)

Student problems in the Covid-19 condition are very complex and urgent in the needs of the Covid-19 pandemic and after Covid-19. School counsellors have the competence to identify through assessment. However, not all reviews can analyze students' problems comprehensively. This study focuses on assessing student problems that can diagnose the condition of students from the personal, social, academic, and career fields. The research method uses a mixed-method through qualitative data supported by quantitative data. The research targets were students, then tested the validity and reliability for students N=929. The results of data analysis describe ten students' problems from the personal, social, learning, and career fields with valid and reliable items. The results of item validity are 49 accurate statement items or corrected item-total correlation > 0.1161, while one thing is invalid with 0.936 reliability or very high criteria. School counsellors can use assessment of student problems in analyzing student problems and needs. The results of the evaluation can be used for guidance and counselling plans by school counsellors.

Advocacy for Sustainability Communication: Unseen Potential of Queer Communicators in Environmental, Climate Change and Sustainability Science

The story of climate change, of destruction and loss, is well represented in mass media around natural hazards and new scientific data (i.e., the newest IPCC report);in contrast, new concepts of restoration, eco-cultural identities, social change and sustainable development are not picked up in public discourses—similarly to how the voices of NGO communicators, activists or queer communicators are not heard in the media. Additionally, the growth of digital publishing technologies and related audience behavior not only influence public communication processes, but also challenge professional communicators, including journalists and PR professionals to scientists, artists and activists. With a series of explorative interviews in different cultural settings (Central Europe, Australia, New Zealand), we can show that queer communicators have the potential to cultivate a new understanding of sustainability communication as social conversation about sustainability, and thus, overcome the very visible old story about climate change and rather propagate the new story of sustainability and transformation. The interviews show that queer communicator advocacy focuses on mobilizing and initiating dialectic conversations, which includes community building and queering existing norms, thus choosing new pathways for communication for sustainability. The findings and the developed concept of advocacy for sustainability communication are discussed at the end of the paper, including a reflection on the limitations of the explorative character of the analysis and future research potential.