Practises, Drivers and Barriers of an Emerging Regenerative Higher Education in The Netherlands—A Podcast-Based Inquiry
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Authors take up in their text a problem that is very important from the social, economic, and environmental points of view. The reviewed article has a logically ordered structure. The theoretical part is written very well, contains all the most important information, and is a well-developed basis for the methodological assumption. In the methodological part of the text, the authors exhaustively explain the assumptions of their research.The part in which the authors present the results of the research is also well described. The article ends with conclusions that are a strong part of the text. I recommend the text for publication.
Author Response
We kindly thank this reviewer for the lovely comments!
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Author/s,
I have read with attention your paper that in my opinion is strongly interesting and stimulating from different points of view.
Below I’m going to list some comments and notes that I hope could be useful to improve some aspects.
- Lines 234
Par.2.3. You have not indicated the demographic characteristics of the participants (age, gender? etc.) which could be useful to discuss your data.
- Lines 493-497 and later.
You wrote that; “it is possible that the sampling was too homogenous. A large majority of the guests were active, or have been, in Dutch higher education. The experiences from the guests from outside The Netherlands were comparable with those active in The Netherlands, indicating that the identified RHE practices could be representative in other European contexts as well”.
In my opinion you have not data to support this statement. In fact, your sample: “included 21 participants active in Dutch Universities, 1 in Sweden, 1 in Germany, 1 in France, and 3 primarily online” (lines 33-34) and so representative of other European countries (France, England, Spain, Italy, for instance) have not been included. So, in my opinion your data can be interpreted only in relation to the characteristics of the Dutch and only a few higher education systems.
- Lines 502 and later.
You wrote that “A significant limitation consists of the time commitment required for podcast-based inquiry, as each episode takes approximately 10 hours of work in additional preparation, recording, editing, and audio improvement as compared to regular interviews.”
I have appreciated the idea to use this podcast-based inquiry (innovative and interesting) but I’m not sure to have well understood why you have preferred it to a regular interview. For this, I invite you (if possible) to explain in more detail why you have used this tools for your inquiry.
In my opinion, the use of podcast could be really good if you use it also to receive feedbacks from people who has followed it, submitting them specific questions. In this perspective podcast could have an amplifier effect and can be really useful.
- Appendix C is only partially translated in English and Appendix D is only in Dutch.
- I’m curious to know why you haven’t mentioned the sustainability competences even if you are discussing regenerative education in the sustainability transition perspective. They could add interesting contributions to your debate; what do you think about this?
I wish thank you for your interesting and stimulating contribution to a very important debate in the context of high education and its role in sustainability transitions.
My best regards
Author Response
Thank you for your thoughtful and useful commentary. Please find our response below, the responses have been updated in the manuscript.
1. 'Par.2.3. You have not indicated the demographic characteristics of the participants (age, gender? etc.) which could be useful to discuss your data.' We did not gather this data as we deemed it outside the scope for now (i.e. we weren't researching necessarily what characterized these scholars/educators). In the text we highlight that all participants have 3 years or more experience but range form end-stage PhD to seasoned academics/educators. In a follow up study it would be very interesting to explore the teacher's side of things for RHE. I.e. what type of people are drawn to these forms of education. We hope that the reviewer understands our reasoning.
3. 'You wrote that; “it is possible that the sampling was too homogenous. A large majority of the guests were active, or have been, in Dutch higher education. The experiences from the guests from outside The Netherlands were comparable with those active in The Netherlands, indicating that the identified RHE practices could be representative in other European contexts as well”.
In my opinion you have not data to support this statement. In fact, your sample: “included 21 participants active in Dutch Universities, 1 in Sweden, 1 in Germany, 1 in France, and 3 primarily online” (lines 33-34) and so representative of other European countries (France, England, Spain, Italy, for instance) have not been included. So, in my opinion your data can be interpreted only in relation to the characteristics of the Dutch and only a few higher education systems.' Response: we agree and tried to only highlight that this is only a potential indication that requires further research. We will adjust the title and focus to the Dutch context and highlight that much more research in other countries is necessary to draw this conclusion. However, we do believe that our results may be a lens through explore other contexts through.
3. 'You wrote that “A significant limitation consists of the time commitment required for podcast-based inquiry, as each episode takes approximately 10 hours of work in additional preparation, recording, editing, and audio improvement as compared to regular interviews.”
I have appreciated the idea to use this podcast-based inquiry (innovative and interesting) but I’m not sure to have well understood why you have preferred it to a regular interview. For this, I invite you (if possible) to explain in more detail why you have used this tools for your inquiry.
In my opinion, the use of podcast could be really good if you use it also to receive feedbacks from people who has followed it, submitting them specific questions. In this perspective podcast could have an amplifier effect and can be really useful.'
Response: The reasons you highlight are indeed why we opted for it. Also the added visibility for our participants (i.e. they can share their innovative practices and add it to their impact/output lists). Indeed, all guests offered feedback and additional insights. Some of them even listened to episodes of the other guests after they were published and responded to that. We will add these benefits and reasonings to the manuscript. It's a lot of fun to do podcast-interviews!
4. 'Appendix C is only partially translated in English and Appendix D is only in Dutch.' Response: Yes because these episodes are in Dutch we decided to only create the artwork in Dutch (to reduce costs). And to avoid non-Dutch speaking scholars/listeners from being disappointed when the episodes are in English.
5. 'I’m curious to know why you haven’t mentioned the sustainability competences even if you are discussing regenerative education in the sustainability transition perspective. They could add interesting contributions to your debate; what do you think about this?' Response: Absolutely agreed, we were surprised that none of the guests particularly mentioned competences (sustainability or otherwise) as a key principle. In a subsequent study we go into this in much more depth. We will add a disclaimer to share our surprise to this as well.
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors of this paper deserve to be congratulated. They have carried out innovative (regenerative) research
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
We kindly thank this reviewer for their lovely comments.
Universities however are not all capable of moving through these Sustainable Transitions (STs). It is here that the university should have prepared their students for living their lives and not be confined to classrooms.' We absolutely agree and the examples also share this commitment. It does raise interesting questions about what to do with universities that cannot make this transition.
'I predict that this paper will soon find its way into university classrooms and form the basis of teaching material in sustainability classes.' this is a great honour and we are very grateful for this comment in particular.
The additional notes are incredibly interesting. We agree with the reviewer that for word count reasons those elements are outside the scope of this study right now. But would be very interesting in pursuing some of these questions in follow up (collaborative) work. Especially some of the tensions that the reviewer highlights about wanting to play an active part in STs while also being stuck in an existing educaitonal system that doesn't always allow this is very relatable.
We are currently discussing where the difference between 'regenerative' and 'generative' lies. In a dual role of conserving and transforming for sustainability.
Once again we very kindly thank this reviewer for the lovely and thoughtful comments and openly invite for further collaboration for follow up (conceptual) work on some of the challenges highlighted.
