Values that shape the future of regions

Structural change is not merely a question of technology or funding. It is always also a question of values: which types of work, which skills, and which visions of the future are considered valuable, and which are no longer? Who decides this? Since 1 September 2026, geographer Jonathan Friedrich has been exploring these and other questions in his role as Junior Professor of Urban and Regional Sociology at the BTU. He heads the new early-career research group ‘Value and Valuation in Structural Change’ at the university and the IRS.

Research for Lusatia and internationally

The research group is investigating how socially shared values are negotiated and take effect spatially in transformation processes such as the phase-out of coal. The focus is on two sides of the same coin: how are new ideas, technologies and organisational forms evaluated, selected and implemented? And how do existing practices and bodies of knowledge lose their significance, fall into oblivion or even get actively unlearned? This perspective of valuation and devaluation has so far scarcely been systematically examined in research on regional transformation processes.

“Regional transformation processes are characterised by actors with different ideas and interests vying for the future,” says Jonathan Friedrich. “We want to gain a better understanding of how these negotiation processes unfold and what opportunities for shaping the future arise from them. This also involves questions of participation and justice.”

“This appointment will further strengthen our close collaboration with the IRS and enrich our research focus area ‘Global Change and Transformation Processes’,” says BTU President Prof. Gesine Grande. “By jointly funding a junior research group associated with the professorship – ‘Value and Valuation in Structural Change’ – the BTU and the IRS are demonstrating an exceptional commitment to building cross-institutional research expertise and fostering close academic exchange.”

“The early-career research group conducts fundamental research whilst simultaneously developing practical, actionable knowledge in collaboration with stakeholders from the regions. This is precisely the kind of research the IRS stands for,” adds Oliver Ibert, Scientific Director of the IRS.

Through this joint appointment, BTU and the IRS are pooling their expertise to provide academic support for structural change in Lusatia whilst ensuring it can be compared at an international level. Although Lusatia in Brandenburg is the research group’s central focus, it is not the only one: as part of PhD projects, other regions in Germany and abroad are analysed to understand how evaluation processes differ in various political, economic and cultural contexts.

About Jonathan Friedrich

Dr Jonathan Friedrich is a human geographer. His research focuses on the geography of sustainability transformations – in particular their spatial organisation, negotiation and effectiveness. From 2024 to 2026, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Human Geography at Lund University in Sweden, and from 2019 to 2024, a Staff Member at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF). In his doctoral thesis at the Georg-August University of Göttingen, he examined the shift towards sustainability in German livestock farming.

About the IRS

The Leibniz Institute for Spatial Social Research investigates the interplay between societal changes and the transformation of spaces. It advises stakeholders from politics and civil society with a view to funding the sustainable development of villages, towns and regions and alleviating socio-spatial inequality. Around 50 researchers from various disciplines work together at the IRS.

About BTU Cottbus–Senftenberg

As a university in the heart of Lusatia, BTU Cottbus–Senftenberg is a driving force for innovation and change in the region. Under the Coal Region Structural Strengthening Act, it initiates collaborative projects across four key areas: ‘Energy Transition and Decarbonisation’, ‘Artificial Intelligence and Sensor Technology’, ‘Health and Life Sciences’, and ‘Global Change and Transformation Processes’. As a research-intensive university of technology with campuses in Cottbus and Senftenberg, it combines research, teaching and knowledge transfer in engineering and the natural sciences, Architecture, Environmental Sciences, Economic Sciences, and the health, education and social sciences.