KOG wins the pitch in the Erasmus Impact Journey!
KOG wins pitch in Erasmus Research Services’ Impact Journey. The prize money lays the foundation for building the koggz.com website.
The Impact Journey
The Impact Journey is an initiative of Erasmus Research Services, the service of Erasmus University Rotterdam that assists researchers in translating ambitions into workable and marketable products. As an academic, you know the content, but marketing ideas is different! In a series of workshops, researchers are challenged to make the impact of their research tangible and insightful.
Femke Truijens, president of KOG, participated in the Impact Journey on behalf of KOG and pitched the collective to the four-member jury, consisting of Ed Brinksma (chairman of the board of directors of Erasmus University Rotterdam), Marco Bik (Rotterdam city councilor), Judith Schueler (valorization manager, author Materializing Identity) and Margo Strijbosch (director of Erasmus Research Services).
The pitch
In two minutes, Femke explained that researchers in psychology have a rock-solid reliance on numbers as the “gold standard” for understanding the experiences of people who suffer. As a result, patients feel treated like a number. Asking for the stories behind the numbers often “dares” researchers, because their scientific training usually relied only on quantitative methods and statistics. The KOG knows this all too well, because its members were also trained that way. KOG sees the solution in a platform and network for researchers who want to look beyond the “one-size-fits-all” and make room for the stories behind the numbers, to build an inclusive and humane mental health care together.
The jury report
The belief in numbers and the forgotten story – that resonated with judges. It aroused surprise that psychology really is so rigorous in its teaching, and that convinced the jury of the importance to KOG’s initiative. KOG was praised for its ambitious and constructive plan for changing the research climate, providing low-threshold education, and thus the long-term vision for changing practices. KOG’s business plan is less standard; an association had not often come up in the Impact Journey. And it was appreciated!
