Co-creation, connection and new steps for the Transition Makers Toolbox
Reflect with us on our Community Event last May 11th!
Welcome to a fresh edition of our newsletter! This time, we look back on our inspiring Community Event: Fuel the Fire on May 11th, explore the newly launched IDG Guide 2.0, and take you into practice with the Visual Narratives tool at the GSLS of UMCU. We also introduce two Transition Makers and share upcoming events to inspire your next steps.
In this newsletter you will find:
🔥 Reflection of our Community Event: Fuel the Fire
🔎 Discover the IDG Guide 2.0
👁️ In-Practice: the Visual Narratives tool in the GSLS of UMCU
💡 Meet 2 Transition Makers
📅Inspire yourself with upcoming events
Read more below ⤵
Order via e-mail: Inner Development Conversation Starters [limited availability]
Connect on a deeper level with yourself and others with the Inner Development Conversation Starters, designed to inspire reflection and dialogue.
Update: due to a transition to a new publisher, it’s currently not possible to order new sets of the Inner Development Conversation Starters via our website. We’re working on a solution and will keep you posted!
In the meantime, you can order the card set via e-mail [limited availability].
New Tools are coming up!
In September 2025, the IDG Framework was updated. This Inner Development Guide (IDG 2.0) identifies 25 skills across 5 dimensions. Five skills have changed or been replaced, and two have been added. The descriptions of the skills are also new. The Transition Makers Toolbox Team has incorporated these changes on the website and in the tools!
As there are three new IDG skills in IDG 2.0, the Transition Makers Toolbox will be enriched with 3-6 new tools in the coming period! The first steps were taken during the co-creation part of the Community Event. Stay tuned…
Looking back at the Transition Makers Toolbox Community Event: 🔥Fuel the Fire🔥
On May 11th, a wonderful group of Transition Makers gathered in Utrecht for our yearly Community Event 2026: Fuel the Fire
An inspiring afternoon where we took the time to share experiences, reflect, connect and co-create!
✨ Roos De Jonge shared how she uses The Superhero in Me in education and how Inner Development Goals are being integrated throughout an entire bachelor programme.
✨ Gwenda Frederiks and Jasper ter Schegget shared the implementation Toolbox and ongoing projects at the UvA and EWUU.
✨ Together, we co-created ideas for new tools connected to three novel IDG skills in the updated Inner Development Guide:
* Proactivity
* Forgiveness
* Conscious Use of Resources
In the coming months, these ideas will be further developed through co-creation with the community.
✨The session was warmly opened and closed by Esther Reefman through an embodied check-in and check-out focused on gratitude, reflection and what we took with us from this afternoon.
One thing was clearly felt and seen: the Transition Makers Toolbox is not only a collection of tools. It is a growing community of educators and practitioners working together on transition-oriented education and inner development.
Thank you to everyone who brought their ideas, energy and curiosity. As coordinators, we had much fun preparing this session! During the summer period we will work on a plan to co-create the new tools based on the ideas during the event.
The fire is definitely burning - so let’s keep on fueling it together🔥
In Practice: The Visual Narratives tool in the Graduate School of Life Sciences, UMCU
At Utrecht University, master students who are participating in the Graduate School of Life Sciences, are offered a creative challenge in their education: the Visual Narratives tool from the Transition Makers Toolbox. Transition Maker Michèle Molendijk, PhD talks about the background of the programmes in which it is offered, the challenge itself and the reactions from students.
Meet the Transition Makers
“With Traveling Concepts, students discover, learn and understand how concepts travel and transform through debate and questioning. Students can experience that interdisciplinary conversations are both challenging and fun!
As an anthropologist of violence and security and a legal scholar, we bring distinct disciplinary lenses to our collaboration. Through teaching and co-hosting Travelling Concepts on Air, we explore how concepts shape research and why interdisciplinary dialogue is essential for addressing complex challenges. These conversations allow us to question assumptions, spark new ideas and experience the joy and insight that come with working across disciplinary boundaries.”
Brianne McGonigle Leyh & Tessa Diphoorn
“What if you could expand your conceptual vocabulary—thinking, imagining, and making connections in new ways? Creating New Metaphors is a creative tool for generating ideas and reframing problems, using images and language to offer new perspectives on transitions and futures.
My work centers on applying imagination to climate futures, via designing tools for creative participatory (re-)imagining in an age of crises and transitions. Creating New Metaphors is an example of this approach, originally released in 2019, and continuously developed through workshops inside and outside of academia, with researchers and students.”
Dutch translation of the Inner Development Guide
Recently the Inner Development Guide has been translated to Dutch by IDG Nederland. At their website you can find the Dutch framework and other IDG-related materials translated to Dutch.
Upcoming Inspiring Events
In the second half year of 2026 a lot of inspiring events are coming up. Read below for more details and get inspired!
* IDG Dialogues Leading Yourself and Others in Times of Uncertainty - Fostering Inner Coherence
In this session we’ll feel how our inner coherence is an anchor for Resilience. Expect a highly interactive session which will be about sensing, reflecting, learning and sharing. Your take away will be to identify your personal incoherence trigger and a short repeatable reset that you can use in real-life situations.
Date: June 12th 2026, 16.00-17.30 CEST
Location: online (Zoom)
For whom: for anyone interested in scientifically based coherence, strengthening capacity and impact through inspiration and experimenting.
* Third national IDG NL Event
What can you expect from this event? An afternoon of co-creation, connection, and learning together, in which young adults play an active and equal role. It will be about listening, sharing, and inspiring one another.
Date: September 18th 2026, 13:00-16:00h
Location: Social Impact Factory Utrecht (SDG House)
For whom: for everyone that wants to build together on a healthy, connected future: students, starters, young professionals and others that are interested.
* Utrecht University Summer School - Better Humans, Better World: Mastering the Inner Development Goals
This Utrecht University Summer School course invites you to explore the Inner Development Goals through lived experience. You slow down, turn inward, and engage deeply with your own patterns, values, tensions, and untapped potential. You cultivate the inner capacities—clarity, courage, empathy, and resilience—needed to navigate complexity and contribute meaningfully to a better world.
In an international group, you take part in embodied practices, reflective exercises, and honest dialogue. You meet yourself fully, challenge old assumptions, and discover new ways of being that connect inner transformation to tangible impact—all within the light, inspiring energy of a Utrecht summer.
Date: July 6th - 10th 2026
Location: Utrecht, the Netherlands
For whom: for everyone interested in integrating inner work for outer change to realize the Sustainable Development Goals. But not for the faint hearted!
* Caux Inner Development Goals Forum
The Forum will place a special focus on forgiveness — as both a personal practice and a collective act of renewal. This year’s edition is co-organised by the Caux Initiatives of Change Foundation, with its legacy of reconciliation; the Inner Development Goals Foundation, with its guide for inner growth; and the Alef Trust, with its integrative approach to education and systemic transformation. It is also held in partnership with the Inclusion Awareness Network (INAN), further strengthening its commitment to fostering inclusive dialogue and awareness.
Date: July 13th - 16th 2026
Location: Caux Palace, Switzerland
For whom: changemakers, entrepreneurs, First Nations, civil society, government, youth movements, academia and business.
Interested in more events from the Inner Development Goals network?
Contact us
Do you have questions about the Transition Makers Toolbox? You can reach us at info@transitionmakers.nl. We are looking forward to hearing from you!
Join our LinkedIn community to become a member of the IDG Higher Education Hub and learn, innovate, practice and share the application of tools or share stories, recordings of lectures, event designs and presentations with other Transition Makers.