From Wishful Thinking to Wishful Doing: Dr. Elke Van dermijnsbrugge Keynote Announced

The Rudolf Agricola School is thrilled to announce that Dr. Elke van Dermijnsbrugge will deliver the keynote at our upcoming event on 27 October 2025: Make it happen: Fellows accelerating change together | The role and relevance op the University in the 21st Century

Dr. Van dermijnsbrugge is a leading expert in radical imagination and the Future of Work & Education. She is a lecturer-researcher in International Teacher Education at NHL Stenden University and holds a PhD from UCL. Her innovative work explores how utopian thinking, punk ethos, and anarchist philosophies can transform education toward more just and imaginative futures.

Below you will find a sneak peek of what to expect from her keynote, and make sure to stay tuned as we’ll be releasing an in-depth interview with Dr. Van dermijnsbrugge soon! If any of this sparks your interest, you can find more information about the event and registration details here.

Dispatches from the Future: From Wishful Thinking to Wishful Doing

It is 2055. Universities have become spaces of disruption, imagination and social transformation. Multiple species gather and collaborate on how to co-exist and learn with and from each other. Researchers, lecturers and students are engaging in abundantly funded and freely accessible research in collaboration with local, regional and international communities, radically reimagining how to live, learn and work. University leadership makes bold political and ethical choices and plays a leading role in countering polarisation, oppression, violence and injustice.

How did we get there? How did we overcome the global crises of political instability, environmental destruction, increasing global inequalities, commercialisation of education etc. that marked the year 2025? How did we move from wishful thinking to wishful doing? We will explore a toolkit for this futuring work and look at the conceptual notions and some practical examples of uprising, the radical imagination, speculative direct action, and self-organisation. Universities will be repositioned and reimagined as spaces where alternative futures emerge, starting here and now.