EB Education conference 2026 – The societal impact of our education

By Erik Boer (REC Impact), Angelo Tomaselli (EB), and Mark van der Veen (EB) – M0.01

This session introduces the UvA Impact Challenge and shows how students create entrepreneurial solutions to societal issues. It covers the structure, learning goals, and results of the Impact Challenge, and discusses how lecturers can incorporate it into their courses. We exchange insights and ideas on how impact-focused education contributes to academic development, entrepreneurship, and societal engagement in Economics and Business. Former Challenge participants will present their experiences.

This session consists of 2 parts:

I) The minor entrepreneurship: 100 students, 25 startups and unique to the Netherlands – by Jonathan Sitruk (EB) and Taehyun Lee (EB) – MS.01

The minor Entrepreneurship is a 5-month program where students form teams, identify problems, and build real businesses. In the ‘Entrepreneurship in Practice’ course, students learn to recognise problems worth solving, test their MVP, and pitch their ideas to real users and mentors. In the ‘Cases in Entrepreneurship’ course and ‘Startup Psychology’ courses, students explore entrepreneurial theories and founder behaviour, and apply these insights in their own business. In this programme, students learn to translate entrepreneurial thinking into tangible social and economic impact.

II) Community service as a Kickstarter for Social Entrepreneurship – Stefan Mol (EB) and Anouk Duba (Serve the City Amsterdam) – MS.01

In this session, we will share over 10 years of experience with students engaging in community service as part of the 9 ETCS honors module Social Entrepreneurship. We will discuss challenges in incorporating 80-hour community service projects into an 8-week course, including incentivizing community service and assessing volunteer work outside the university. We’ll also present our successful collaboration with Service the City Amsterdam, an organization that facilitates volunteering in 65 cities worldwide.

By Federica Bono (FMG) – M.0.02

This session introduces the concept of Community-Engaged Learning (CEL): a powerful form of experiential learning based on reciprocal partnerships, social change, and critical reflection. Federica Bono presents the key principles of CEL and discusses developing responsible and mutually valuable partnerships and assessment strategies.

By Rick Hollen (EB), Charmianne Lemmens (EB), and Rein Jonkman (EB) – MS.02

How do we bring real-life organisational challenges into the classroom? This session introduces a renewed platform that connects teaching across Economics and Business with organisations. These organisations bring real-life challenges into the classroom, which students actively work on. You will gain insight into why this educational format is valuable, the possibilities it offers lecturers, how the matching process works, and new developments. We will also highlight examples of courses that have recently applied challenge-based learning successfully.

This session consists of two parts:

I) What happens when students pitch to actual impact investors – by Paul Smeets (EB) – MS.01

In this part of the session, you will discover how master’s students in the Honours course Impact investing translate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into concrete investment cases that generate both financial returns and measurable societal impact. Students develop full business cases, including cash-flow and risk analyses, and pitch their ideas in a Dragons’ Den–style finale to professional impact investors. In doing so, they bridge theory and practice. The session also explores how research on effective giving and impact measurement helps students critically assess what ‘impact’ truly means and how to recognise it.

II) Translating societal and environmental challenges into social enterprise models – by Kevin Curran (EB) – MS.01

Kevin Curran shows how bachelor students in the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship course learn to translate societal challenges into social enterprise models. In this course, students work in teams to design a business model for a social venture that addresses a societal problem while also exploring how the venture can be profitable. He also shows how he uses optional extra-credit workshops to invite guest speakers on these topics as a supplement to the regular lectures.

This session consists of 2 parts:

I) Challenge-based learning: ‘AI in je bedrijf’ – by Inez Zwetsloot (EB) – M0.02

Get to know the ‘AI in je Bedrijf’ (Dutch for: ‘AI in your company’) programme, in which 150 students collaborate with 30 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to implement practical AI solutions. Through challenge-based learning, students apply their technical skills to address real business challenges, while SMEs gain access to innovative AI tools and data expertise. In this session, you will discover the project, the results it has produced, and the mutual benefits of this collaboration between university and industry.

II) Climate negotiation game – Thomas Douenne (EB) – M0.02
This talk by Thomas Douenne presents a climate negotiation game used in a Master’s course on Environmental Economics and Policies. Students represent different countries and negotiate an international climate agreement under conflicting economic and environmental interests. After researching the climate policies and vulnerabilities of their assigned country, they design negotiation strategies and bargain over mitigation commitments, fossil fuel transitions and climate finance. The exercise immerses students in the political economy of global climate cooperation and highlights the distributional and strategic challenges underlying real-world climate policy.

By Rosanne van Wieringen (IIS) and Katusha Sol (IIS) – M0.01

How can we create learning environments in which students engage meaningfully with societal and economic challenges — not as observers, but as contributors?
In this workshop, we introduce Impact Learning: an approach in which students work on real-world questions in collaboration with external partners. You will discover why you would use impact learning in your teaching, the different ways you can apply it, and what you can do to implement or expand it in your own course. We share examples and lessons learned, such as building sustainable collaborations with external partners. You will also start sketching a first design for your own course.