SCIENCE BASED ACTIVISM IN ACTION
We train the people who refuse to accept traffic as fate.
The mobility system wasn't designed by gravity. It was designed by people, shaped by political choices, and maintained by assumptions we rarely examine. Lab of Thought University exists to give you the knowledge, language, and tools to change that — in your city, your institution, your street.
Lab of Thought University turns our science-based activism into powerful learning journeys. From bold keynotes to deep masterclasses and multi-month training programs, we help you rethink the stories, systems and streets that shape your city.
The knowledge exists. The problem is what we do with it.
Why the Lab university exists
Decades of research have shown us how mobility systems work, who they serve, and what it would take to change them. The science is not the bottleneck. The bottleneck is the gap between knowing and acting — between the academic paper and the city council meeting, between the field experiment and the infrastructure budget.
"The deer isn't crossing the road. The road is crossing the forest."
Lab of Thought University closes that gap. Not by simplifying the research into digestible soundbites, but by building the capacity to think differently, argue better, and experiment more boldly — with the complexity intact.
Our learning offer is grounded in the Lab's own fieldwork, its network of leading international mobility thinkers, and its decade of practice translating radical ideas into real streets.
From spark to system change
WHY THE LAB EXISTS
Short, high-impact sessions that expose the hidden assumptions running your organisation's thinking. Not inspiration theatre — productive disruption. You leave with a question you didn't know you were avoiding
Interactive sessions where concepts become tools. We bring theory, fieldlab cases and methods — you bring your streets, your dilemmas, your team. Work sessions, not lectures. You leave with something you can use on Monday.
Multi-session trajectories that build lasting institutional capacity. Co-designed with your organisation. The goal isn't a certificate — it's a team that thinks differently about the streets it shapes, and keeps doing so after we leave the room.
WHO SHOULD JOIN
IT’s Not for everyone.
BUT Exactly for you.
CITIES & REGION
The policymaker who has run out of patience with the status quo.
We write the plans. Nothing actually changes in the street."
For municipalities, regions and public agencies ready to move beyond traffic flow management. You want frameworks that help you question your own playbook, bring justice into your policies, and design experiments that work in real streets with real people — not just in PDFs. style, Monet believes that growth happens when learners feel both challenged and supported.
ORGANISATIONS AND FIRMS
The professional who senses the current system has hit its limits.
“We optimise everything. But we never ask what we're optimising for."
For design studios, consultancies, mobility companies and developers whose work touches urban space. You want your projects to do more than optimise — to redistribute space, power and possibility in the city. You're willing to learn new languages and methods to get there.
UNIVERSITIES & COMMUNITIES
The researcher who wants ideas that land in the street.
"We publish. Policymakers don't read. Nothing moves."
For academics, NGOs, citizen movements and cultural institutions who understand that ideas only matter when they travel beyond the classroom. You want to connect research, activism and policy — and equip a new generation of street-level change-makers.
INTERESTED CITIZENS
The person who knows something is wrong every time they step into traffiC.
"I can feel it. I just don't have the words for it yet."
For planners, designers, activists, students and curious citizens. You may not control the system, but you're ready to sharpen your thinking, expand your repertoire, and become the person in the room who dares to ask different questions about who the city is for.
1 - OUR KEYNOTES
Radical insight in
45–90 minutes
Our keynotes blend academic rigour, fieldlab practice and a touch of theatre. They are designed to unsettle, inspire and prepare the ground for real change. Each one ends not with applause but with a problem your organisation can no longer ignore.
Street Language Matters
Marco te Brömmelstroet
Every day, we reproduce a mobility system with words we don't examine: "traffic", "users", "flow", "bottlenecks", "congestion". These aren't neutral descriptions — they are political choices that decide who belongs in the street, what counts as a problem, and what solutions are even conceivable. This keynote shows how language shapes budgets, design and power — and how choosing different words can open radically different futures.
Recognise the dominant mobility stories running your own organisation's decisions
See the political consequences of technical-sounding language
Leave with first tools to reframe mobility in your specific context
DURATION
45–60 min + Q&A
AUDIENCE
City leaders, planners, engineers, designers, activists
FORMAT
In-person or Online
COSTS
€4.000 (ex VAT)
The Hill of Hysteria
Alexander Premm
When cities change their mobility, things rarely stay quiet. Resistance emerges — emotional, visible, politically inconvenient. But resistance is not evidence that change was wrong. It is almost always a phase. Guided by the experiences of 13 mayors who successfully navigated mobility transitions, this keynote maps the predictable arc from proposal to panic to public support — and gives you a strategy to lead through it rather than retreat from it.
Understand how change actually works in mobility practice, not just in theory
Read resistance as signal rather than verdict
Develop a clear strategy to lead through the peak of hysteria — without backing down
AUDIENCE
City leaders, planners, engineers, designers, activists
FORMAT
In-person or Online
The End of the Road
DURATION
45–60 min + Q&A
COSTS
€2.500 (ex VAT)
Marco te Brömmelstroet
When cities change their mobility, things rarely stay quiet. Resistance emerges — emotional, visible, politically inconvenient. But resistance is not evidence that change was wrong. It is almost always a phase. Guided by the experiences of 13 mayors who successfully navigated mobility transitions, this keynote maps the predictable arc from proposal to panic to public support — and gives you a strategy to lead through it rather than retreat from it.
Understand how change actually works in mobility practice, not just in theory
Read resistance as signal rather than verdict
Develop a clear strategy to lead through the peak of hysteria — without backing down
AUDIENCE
City leaders, planners, engineers, academics
FORMAT
In-person or Online
DURATION
30–60 min + Q&A
COSTS
€3.500 (ex VAT)
2 - OUR MASTERCLASSES
master the TOOLS FOR RADICAL PRACTICE.
Each masterclass is a 60–90 minute work and play session — online or in-company. We bring concepts, acases and tools. You bring your streets, your dilemmas, your team. Together we practice new ways of seeing and acting. Book a single session or build a series.
3 - TRAINING PROGRAM
READY, SET, GO
In collaboration with the University of Amsterdam
READY
Understand the system you're working inside
We introduce the transitions framework to map how mobility systems change across different levels of society — and help you identify where your actions can have the greatest leverage. We also look at the historical evolution of streets: how ideology has shaped what people believe streets are for, and whose interests that history has served.
SET
Design an experiment worth running
Working from your own active projects, you identify a real opportunity to design a radical yet feasible urban experiment — one that challenges conventional approaches to mobility and public space without asking permission from a system that hasn't caught up yet. Theory meets street reality here.
GO!
Take it back into the institution
The final phase is about translation and commitment: how to bring new thinking back into an organisation built around old assumptions. You leave not just with insights but with a concrete plan, a peer network, and the institutional language to keep going.