A bicycle trip, a world tour, a research project, an audiovisual project, an epic life...
Let's put some order into all this!
Kosmogonia is, above all else, an international research project and an excuse to grow in humanity, knowledge, encounters and (get) inspired.
SUMMARY
- WHY THIS PROJECT?
- IS THIS A WORLD TOUR BY BICYCLE?
- ARE YOU WRITING A THESIS?
- HOW ARE YOU FINANCING THE PROJECT?
- DO YOU ALSO MAKE VIDEOS?
- WHAT IS ACTION RESEARCH?
why this project ?
After spending several years providing courses, training thousands of people on climate issues, spending thousands of hours within committed movements, we had a very strong need to be in a learning and listening posture again.
Beyond a personal project that has been evolving for more than 5 years, the field of research interests us enormously as it allows us to advance questions, discussions-debates and the move to action.
We wanted to find a way to participate and the academic thesis format did not suit us in terms of posture and deadline.
🕵️ We are convinced that credible and structured research methodology can and must play a strong catalytic role in the transformation of societal models.
There is an unfortunate emerging mistrust of scientific institutions, and individuals feel deeply alienated from them. We want to make research accessible, attractive and bring it closer to society, building bridges between the two in the service of a desirable future.
So that it is no longer considered the prerogative of “elites in white coats” and understood as being in the direct service of societal impact.
Is it a world tour by bike?
We chose to be low-carbon itinerants, so the train-bike combo seemed obvious to us. Most of our trips are made by train, the bicycle is then both our way of getting around from stations, a way of traveling in complete autonomy in and around the places visited, as well as help in carrying our luggage !
And to be honest, we're not big bikers 😉
We plan to continue this roaming model into Asia.
Multimodal in all circumstances 😊
are you doing A THESIS?
Not really. The approach is similar in its rigor and methodology, but we did not want to commit to it. After much reflection, we did not want to take the risk of restricting ourselves to a given theme or scope of study from the start, and for several years. Which did not seem compatible with our pace of life, our need for diversity, our evolving curiosities for many subjects and our strong need for freedom.
So we arrived with a desire, an idea, an inspiration and then had the chance to meet a superb research team when we gave courses in Nantes. From meeting to meeting, we arrived at a co-constructed action research format.
👉 We had the main question, wrote the specifications, we identified the organizations over time, conducted the interviews then transmitted the confidential recordings to the researchers.
We are therefore both the initiators of the project, the people who go into the field to meet the organizations and we also work on the analysis/study. In a way, we are the “knowledge brokers” of this project.
The researchers' team
🕵️ The teacher-researchers listen, read and analyze the interviews and work together to provide the analyzes as the odyssey progresses, determining the associated theoretical model. We are keen to also participate in these stages to immerse ourselves in the research culture and associate our field vision with it.
Our research question:
🔎 What are the ingredients that promote ecological shifts?
This includes both the individual shifts of project leaders but also the organizational shifts.
This is the big research question and will require at least 2 years before academic research papers officially emerge.
📃 No fear, we will also digest and transmit what we learn as we go along in the form of blog posts, infographics or even videos. From 2024, we will probably move towards writing a book, conferences, white papers and why not a podcast.
👉 Three main objectives:
Inspirational: Inspire leaders, organizational governance and transition stakeholders with references to ecological shifts and testimonials.
Research: Democratize the world of research and create science-society links. Contribute to moving research towards interdisciplinary themes.
Educational: Support the transformation of higher education educational courses on the themes of ecological shifts thanks to credible and accessible data.
How do you finance THE PROJECT?
We are fully financing the project ourselves with our company Essaim d’avenir.
It is a very unusual format, which aims to guarantee us total independence, to question us about the relationship with money, to usefulness and to involve our networks in these reflections.
❓ What is the money we earn used for?
How to use it wisely?
For what?
We decided to participate in research by wearing a multitude of hats (both in production, execution, field action, downstream analysis and dissemination). Thanks to our professional training and consulting activities that we continue in parallel, as well as part of our money aside, we have decided to finance 100% of the project - to date.
We wanted to be as independent as possible. To do this, we must maintain a certain level of paid activities and have chosen to allocate a significant part of our past income to this research project. This saves us from sometimes very tedious grant-financing application processes, and allows us to focus our time and energy on our commitment.
Maybe it will evolve in the future but for the moment, this is the choice we made #newModel.
We therefore only work with non-financial partners:
Audencia and the IAE of Nantes are our research partners
Sparknews, for their part, are our sourcing partner.
This means that they help us identify international organizations and make it easier for us to get in touch.
We take this opportunity to thank them for their very positive energies on this project!
Rather than investing our money set aside in real estate or material goods, we decided to maximize our life experiences in a committed and transversal project. It was important for us to delve into it in our thirties.
DO YOU ALSO MAKE VIDEOS?
We encounter a plethora of organizations that inspire us and that can inspire others, hence our desire to make them visible through formats other than research. It was therefore important for us to have a complementary means of expression.
In the Kosmogonia project, there are therefore several formats:
1) The research interview: purely confidential, listened to and analyzed with the research team. There are no shots in this format, which makes it very authentic.
2) Story capsules: a 15-20 minute video format which presents, with a framework co-constructed with our partner Sparknews, the organizations we meet.
👉 We carry out many more research interviews than capsules because the work of shooting, editing, editing and broadcasting is very time-consuming.
Moreover, to support this workload (it's titanic, we generally have very little idea of what working around video means!), we started working with Nina, Noé and Valérie who launched their activity in the audiovisual sector. We are delighted to collaborate with them on this adventure! For the moment we are also self-financing this audiovisual work.
⏱ These 2 formats (research interview and capsule story) take on average between 2 hours and 3 hours of recording each.
We are also planning other formats (like this immersion at Bonne Vie, a coliving place), we will keep you informed over the coming months.
And how is the filming going?
When we meet with an organization, we prioritize research above all else. However, we often want to film for a story capsule. The ideal is to have time together in the morning for the research interview, lunch, then shoot the capsule in the afternoon after a good coffee/chicory!
Later, there will be dozens of hours of derushing, cutting, editing, design and reflection on publication...
All capsules are published on Youtube, available on our site and also published on Instagram.
What is action research?
It is a theoretical approach centered on practice; a real-life experiment.
Action research differs from conventional research methods:
Its main goal is social change
The relationships between researchers and study participants are more complex and less hierarchical.
The most common goal of action research is to guide the search for answers to complex problems in disciplines such as education, health sciences, sociology or anthropology.
Action research is often grounded in ideals of social justice and an ethical commitment to improving the quality of life in particular social contexts.
Also, beyond the theoretical aspect, through the Kosmogonia project we want to make visible positive initiatives that are flourishing, often little known or marginal, in order to make them accessible and desirable to as many people as possible.
Beyond imagining how difficult the future will be if we don't do enough, we want to help show a future where we have managed to really change things.
To do this, we meet committed project leaders and conduct qualitative interviews called "life stories" (it's not us who say it, it's research) and at the same time carry out dynamic audiovisual formats to highlight them.
Our intentions with this interdisciplinary research project:
Academic: Supporting the transformation of educational curricula in major schools and universities on the theme of ecological transition using relevant action research data
(nourished in particular by the observation that it was complex to identify and make visible inspiring organizations or initiatives for the construction of our own courses) #beyondPatagonia
Inspirational: Inspire leaders, organizational governance, the general public and transition stakeholders with concrete and credible references to ecological shifts through a rigorous international study
(well yes, generally when it seems not to exist or when it is not made visible, we cannot project ourselves!) #newmodels
Research: Democratize the world of research and facilitate the science-society interface. Contribute to moving research towards interdisciplinary and on the theme of ecological seesaws.
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