The mobility of ideas

Movement Profile

The Unity Express is an annual four-week long journey with one single train to cities all across Europe. Its goal is to improve the ways we live together in our local, national and global communities through the collective practice of alternative approaches to the challenges we face as society. It does so by creating a mini-society of change-makers, artists and citizens on-board the train who live together during the journey in their applied utopia of methods, tools, practices and principles to present answers to the challenges of our times. They document their experience and share it via the internet with the global community.

During the many city stops, the travelling community facilitates activities that reach out to locals and inspire them to learn, adapt and apply similar approaches and sense of community to their local contexts. This is done in collaboration with the municipality and local partner organisations and institutions. The goal of every activity, on-board and in cities is to foster new projects that make use of the tools and principles presented. Projects that emerge from the journey can receive seed funding from The Unity Express to get them off the ground. By pursuing these goals, The Unity Express shifts public attention and energy from problems to solutions, from being overwhelmed to taking things into your own hands. The Unity Express wants to amplify the good things in our society. It is a symbol for community, collaboration and what we can achieve together.

The first journey of The Unity Express will cross 24 European countries and visit 14 cities. The train will depart from the Netherlands and take an almost complete tour through the countries of Europe via Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria to Turkey, and from there via Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, Monaco, France, Switzerland and Austria to the final destination in Slovenia. Along the way the train will stop in Maastricht, Malmö, Oslo, Frankfurt (Oder), Brno, Debrecen, Ruse, Istanbul, Thessaloniki, Belgrade, Padua, Lyon, Innsbruck and Maribor. The dates for the first journey have yet to be confirmed.

Due to a different track width it is not possible for us to visit Portugal, Spain, Finland and the European countries that have been former parts of the Soviet Union. Due to insufficient railway infrastructure we are not able to visit Albania and Montenegro. Due to legal restrictions it is not possible for us to visit Great Britain, Denmark and Kosovo.

Our vision of a mobile EU: The mobility of ideas

The Unity Express can also be called a project that supports the mobility of ideas. In every corner of our planet, people are increasingly saying ‘we can do better’. They take the decision to act, instead of being acted upon. They want to improve our society by improving the quality of life for people around them. They are obsessed with ideas and they won’t give up until they’ve become the new standard. We need is more of these leaders, not more ideas. The best ideas are worthless if there’s nobody to implement them.

Ideas get created through the interaction between people, through journeys, change of perspective and challenges. Once a person champions an idea, people will follow and support that person. Today society is able to provide the support for these champions. But we have yet to learn how we can enable everybody to become such a leader.

Whenever people move, they bring their ideas with them. When they meet and interact with other people, their ideas get spread and new ideas get born. We need to increase the mobility of ideas, which means we need to increase the interaction of people. Although we live in times of ubiquitous information streams, it is people who make ideas happen.

The interaction between people from different environments and different roles enables society to advance. Even in the digital age, we still gain a lot of our knowledge and insights through human interaction.

In this understanding of mobility I also include travel, a very powerful tool to gain greater consciousness of the reality we live in. Travel expands one’s horizons. It is during journeys where you really get to know yourself and others. Journeys with others can create friendships for life and even end old friendships. The experience gained and the encounters made during trips around Europe provide a far better understanding of reality than simply staying at home and attending classes at university.

It seems close to impossible to imagine a world in which we couldn’t move freely, where we’re stuck to one place, constantly meeting, if at all, only the same people. It’s a sad and frightening image. Yet we take the great mobility possibilities that we have as EU citizens for granted. Just like the air that we breathe we are only reminded of its value when it is not there. Therefore, our vision of EU mobility is one in which the movement of people to new countries and contexts creates a mobility of ideas fit to solve the region’s problems.