Aandacht voor vermaatschappelijking. Over filantropie en maatschappelijk initiatief.
In his valedictory speech, Professor of Philanthropy Theo Schuyt looks back at the role of private initiative in the Netherlands at that time. Government and private initiative shared responsibility for numerous facilities. This came to an end in the last quarter of the last century, when the government took full responsibility for these. However, private initiative did not disappear but sought its own place. Thus a new sector emerged, the philanthropy sector. In academia, this development was noticed and made visible by the VU study "Geven in Nederland" which has mapped social involvement (giving behavior and volunteering) every two years since 1997.
Based on current data from this study and recent research on social initiatives, civic initiatives and collectives, Schuyt shows that social initiative is alive and well in the Netherlands. In his speech, Schuyt then addresses the question of what this means for politics, policy, science, research and education.