Anne Beaulieu
Research and Publications
Rediscovering the ‘local’ in knowledge infrastructures, PhD Scholarship, apply by 15-11-2021
Major societal challenges such as climate change, land degradation or loss of biodiversity have been formulated through large-scale and centralized systems for global data. But recent calls for disaggregation and localisation of data point to the need to produce, handle and use data differently. How can these calls for the local be reconciled with decades of scholarship that insists that data have always been local? Explore this topic as part of a PhD with the Knowledge Infrastructure dept Campus Fryslân – University of Groningen. Apply by 15 November. More details on site of U. of Groningen. #PhD #scholarship #STS
Summer memories
A few days ago, I came across this photo from last July. This was my big smile finish for the Triathlon de Gatineau Olympic distance. A very fast swim, a very slow bike section and a relaxed run took me to the blue carpet. It was my first race post-Covid19 and I spent most of the run being incredibly grateful that I was actually on the course. My Dutch suit also got me a fist bump from the race director, since we share a surname. One of the other Beaulieus on the course, my little brother, cheered my arrival–he’d had time for a snack and a massage between his finish and mine!
Learning in the Anthropocene
Learning in the Anthropocene is the title of the lecture I will deliver at the opening of the academic year on 7 September in Leeuwarden.
Recent events have made us realise that we are part of a global system and living
under conditions often described as the Anthropocene—a label used to describe
human-induced changes to the climate. In her Gemma Frisius lecture, Prof. Anne
Beaulieu will share vital insights on what kind of learning is essential in order to
tackle the urgent problems we face.
See the full programme and the video of the lecture in the Grote of Jacobijnerkerk.
the university as expensive streaming service
What is the university without a physical campus? Since the spring, these variations on a meme have been putting forth an answer:
Why do some people think that this is what is left of the university, when stripped of its campus and shared physical space? The Data Research Centre reflected on the significance of infrastructure for higher education for the special issue on covid-19 of TH&MA, the journal for higher education management of the Dutch and Flemish institutions of higher learning. See the full edition here (in Dutch).
How do we value big data?
A nice question to sink your teeth into, thought Xiaoyao Han. Recently graduated from the Masters in Information Science from the Humboldt University in Berlin, Xiaoyao has joined Campus Fryslan and the Data Research Centre on 1 November. She will be working on a PhD project entitled Valuing Big Data. The project will be supervisied by Oskar Gstrein, Ronald Stolk and myself.
New project on energy, innovation and community
Imagine a group of people coming together around the shared project to produce energy locally, and who ways to benefit from more social connections, as well as cheaper and cleaner energy. That’s a recipe for a sustainable future!
This is the focus of a project for which funding has recently been announced, and entitled ‘Social entrepreneurship at the grid edge’.
Led by Charlotte Johnson (UCL), this project will explore how community groups can generate value through an energy system that is becoming more flexible and distributed. The project focuses specifically on demand side response and collective self-consumption opportunities.
Besides this great topic, another exciting aspect of this project is that it will connect critical infrastructure studies and place-based entrepreneurship theory, thereby linking two lines of work at Campus Fryslan on sustainable entrepreneurship (Emma Folmer) and on knowledge infrastructures for sustainability (Anne Beaulieu).
The project will include a comparative element between the UK and the Netherlands. This part of the project will be done by Esther van der Waal, who is just completing a PhD on Local energy innovators: collective experimentation for energy transition at the Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Groningen.Dr Anna Rebmann (Kings College Business School) will also be involved.
A steering committee of stakeholders and academics will further support the project; UK Power Networks, Carbon Coop, Power2Change, Newham Council, Dr Sarah Darby (University of Oxford), Prof Sarah Bell (UCL IEDE), Prof David Shipworth (UCL Energy Institute) and Dr Anne Beaulieu (University of Groningen).
How does the pandemic help us teach our students to change the world?
A brand new podcast from Campus Fryslan: Together with Sepideh Yousefzadeh and Saskia Rosendaal of Campus Fryslan, we discuss the need to reflect on our teaching practices and how we are reinventing them, the welfare of students and the prospects for incoming students and what their fresher year might look like.
We also consider how the pandemic changes not only how we teach, but also what we teach–this huge social mobilization is a weighty experience. How does it help us teach our students how to change the world?
Find the podcast here. More episodes from Campus Fryslan to come…
PhD Scholarship Valuing Big Data
Academic education after the pandemic
At long last, the debate about the kind of education we want to be providing is emerging. The Data Research Centre (DRC) has an opinion piece on Science Guide and we have produced a discussion guidefor the academic community on distance learning. A webinar hosted by ArtEZ University of the Arts addressed Crisis Education//Critical Education. I couldn’t join the live event, but the background videos were great!
The triathlon toolbox
Sometimes we realise that areas of life inform each other in unexpected ways. How does my passion for triathlon matter for my professional development? This is the topic of reflections I shared with the Campus Fryslan community. Curious about how endurance sports translates to academic life in the time of corona? The answer can be found on the CF blog.
Anne Beaulieu 