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Silja Zimmerman's project 'Tipping the iceberg' focuses on cooperation with the Arctic indigenous community on St. Paul Island in Alaska. It looks at a sustainable food system for the future. Zimmerman and her team are establishing a Transformation Lab to help the area manage the pathways to a sustainable future. ''The Public Engagement Seed Fund allows us to share the 'narratives of change'. These are intergenerational stories about the past, present and future food system. These stories help the community to give meaning to their food security challenges'', says Silja Zimmermann.

Health inequalities are a major public health problem. Despite efforts in the field of health promotion, it has not yet been possible to reduce it. One of the reasons for this could be that not enough use has been made of experiential knowledge. Jantien van Berkel: ''With the Seed Fund, we want to involve the public in our research activities through an advisory board. Six to eight vulnerable citizens will sit on this advisory board and engage in monthly discussions with researchers, learning from each other and developing research questions, methods and knowledge products that are relevant to the living conditions of people in poor health.  

The NWO-funded project Drum Languages "When Language Has a Beat" by UiL-OTS, focuses on researching African drum languages, particularly in Senegal and Nigeria. In these musical cultures, drums are used as a means of communication. This is difficult to understand without a thorough knowledge of African languages and social contexts. Mariana Garcia Giordano wants to bring this project close to young people and young adults with a migrant background and/or refugee status in Utrecht. ''In doing so, we want to inform, motivate and involve the public in cultural and artistic academic research,'' he says.   

During the Utrecht 900 festivities we will organise a Tolerance Theatre Carousel at different locations in the city. During this theatre performance, short stories will be told about sexual tolerance, religious tolerance and tolerance towards migration. Visitors are invited to react on their personal position towards these important social themes via their smart phones. With the help of a digital app, we will collect the views/values of visitors on these themes and analyse and share them publicly''.  

Dr. Dienke Bos: ''It is important how we talk about mental health problems. It not only influences how we think about and deal with people with so-called labels, it also influences how people with mental health problems think about themselves. For example, when you meet a new colleague or fellow student, does it matter if you know he or she has ADHD or depression?' The project #Kletsbaar investigates how diagnoses influence our perception of people and makes us aware of how we think and talk about psychiatry and mental health problems through the art installation "ColourCross".  

The Prospective Dutch ColoRectal Cancer cohort (PLCRC) and patient organisation Stichting Darmkanker (Bowel Cancer Foundation) are organising an interactive meeting for colon cancer patients and their relatives. The aim is to explain how scientific (questionnaire) research is carried out and what the value of cohort research with questionnaires is. How? Karel Smit says: ''We plan to achieve this by showing the scientific process and sharing scientific results obtained using questionnaire data.