Samenvatting

From 2001 (until February 2017), the Dutch province of Overijssel had its own knowledge center, in the area of urban society alongside the national knowledge centers, that was called KISS. In a first essay, an overview of KISS meetings dedicated to citizen participation was given with examples from all over the world. A second essay zoomed in on the Dutch municipality Deventer, a frontrunner in the area of innovative community and area development. This essay focuses on Enschede, a municipality with nearly 160,000 inhabitants in the east of the Netherlands near the German border, as pioneer with the method of the social general practitioners (‘wijkcoaches’) in the Netherlands. Two KISS meetings were devoted to this innovative instrument: the first on its design and on the preliminary results of the project, the second on the final results and on the future of the project. An important role in pioneering was played by the political executives in the municipality and the community of Enschede that showed New Civic Leadership (a concept from Robin Hambleton) by their commitment to the common good and the values of the welfare state. This type of leadership is especially important in a turbulent policy environment like that of social work with decentralizations, financial cuts and shifting policy goals.