Who's Writing From the Field
People who've spent years wanting to do more, meeting others who feel the same.
De Waterkroon is an old brick water tower, standing prominently over flat Dutch fields a couple of hours north of Amsterdam. In September this becomes the staging post for the first week of Moral Ambition fellowships. There's a particular energy when new fellows come together in that water tower; people who've found themselves wanting to do more, finally meeting others who feel the same.
These are the fellows writing for From the Field. Some came from consulting, others from law or marketing. Some were already in the not-for-profit field or in academia. All of them walked away from well-trodden paths to work on two of the most entrenched problems in European policy: dismantling an industry that kills 8 million people a year, and transforming a food system that slaughters billions of animals every year and actively harms planetary and human health. The challenge: both industries are designed to resist progressive transformation.
Brendan Hadden
2025 Alumni: From Fellows to Founders
The first cohort finished last spring. Two of them co-founded The Protein Project, turning their fellowship insights and prior expertise into a permanent organisation. Two others built Impact Unfiltered, focused on tobacco control advocacy and training. Another is now the Director of her host organisation.
The fellowship gave them the time and space to explore gaps, find collaborators and lean into niches that suited their skills and energy.
Class of '26 Fellows: Learning in Real Time
The current cohort had the benefit of following the first, taking what was learnt on board. But for most, the first days in the 'Brussels Bubble' were still jumping in at the deep end.
Five months in and they're working on tobacco tax policy updates that could reshape harm reduction across the EU. They were in the room at COP11 watching industry influence in real-time operate despite explicit exclusion. The food fellows fought the burger ban, and are building coalitions across fractured movements, trying to ensure protein diversification isn't left out of policy discussions.
We're contributing to From the Field as field notes from tobacco and nicotine tax advocacy, coalition meetings, and policy battles. We bring outsider perspectives, still making sense of how this world works, wanting to make the work more accessible and attractive to people who aren't already insiders. Rachel and Peter are the first co-editors and creators. Ownership passes to the next cohort to document their own journeys when they come together with that same restless energy that brought us all to De Waterkroon that first week of September.
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