ASCL Seminar: Intentional Hope, Social Change and Leadership
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July 12, 2025 marked the first UN-designated International Day of Hope – a global rallying call to keep working towards healthy and prosperous lives for all, despite the unravelling of progress on climate, human rights, and economic inequality, and against the backdrop of persistent, horrific conflict. Faced with dismal daily news, hope is dismissed by some as naïve and tone-deaf, while others clutch it in blind faith. Neither apathy-inducing cynicism nor uncritical optimism are helpful to the many striving for fairer, cleaner futures.
Calling for hope is easier said than done. What is it, and why does it matter? What options do we have when confronted with the inevitable detours and setbacks of transforming systems? This talk explores hope as a choice, despite it all. For many, it has been an intentional political choice; for others, social or psychological.
Drawing on experiences from changemakers across the globe, with particular attention to African contexts, I map what hope offers and its links to agency and leadership. Leadership here is not positional or status-based but grounded in vision and the willingness to act. Examples from leaders working in rural livelihoods, criminal justice, democracy and effective government illuminate the connections between personal, place-based, and societal hope.
Evidence can play a critical role in inspiring action but only by going beyond its traditional focus on learning and accountability. Choosing hope, despite it all, can become a habit that serves us all.
This event will take place in person in Leiden. For registrants who cannot travel to Leiden, a link to an online platform will be sent before the start of the event.
Speaker
Dr. Irene Guijt is global evidence for impact specialist. She has over 35 years of experience with knowledge that supports collective action for social and environmental justice. Her work has focused on how evidence can serve collective action, particularly by building and sustaining the hope needed to fuel the journey towards thriving societies and ecosystems. This has led her to pioneer methodological innovations to hear ignored voices and making visible the less tangible, including developing with colleagues the practice of Participatory Learning and Action and of SenseMaker.
As former Head of Evidence and Strategic Learning for Oxfam Great Britain, she pivoted the organisation’s learning and accountability to be in service of decolonising knowledge and systemic change. She led a global analysis of emergent agency in a time of Covid that highlighted citizens’ creativity and solidarity.
She writes when she can on epistemic justice, megatrends and all things to do with evaluative practice and systemic change. She is currently researching a book on the options for choosing hope and its evidence base. She is a Visiting Fellow at the International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics and a founding Director of Systemic Link.
Date, time and location
07 May 2026
16:00-17:00
Herta Mohr Building / Faculty of Humanities, Witte Singel 27a, 2311 BG Leiden
Room 0.31
Registration
Posted on 13 April 2026, last modified on 13 April 2026