BMBF project"WIRinREGIONEN - Working together in regions: New communality and social innovations for future regions"

• Funded by: BMBF - Region innovativ
• Duration: November 2022 - October 2025
• Cooperation partner: Institute for Ecological Economy Research e.V.
• Staff Members involved: Andreas Huber, Melanie Jaeger-Erben

Structurally weak regions are confronted with special and diverse challenges. Therefore, it is precisely here that new paths must be taken, experiments dared and new forms of cooperation and coexistence developed. The future viability of a region depends crucially on social innovations initiating and implementing important social transformation processes. The aim of the project is to investigate the social transformation capacity of structurally weak regions and to identify factors influencing their design. The central question is: How can the ecosystems of social innovation be located in the regional innovation context and what contributions do they make to social innovation and transformation capacity, in particular in structurally weak regions? For the first time, the project locates social innovation processes theoretically and empirically in the analysis of regional innovation ecosystems. It thus follows current developments in innovation research to examine social innovations in their institutional context. Together with the locally networked practice partners, the associations "Wertewandel", "Netzwerk Zukunftsorte", "heimatBEWEGEN" and the Bundesverband Soziokultur, the project team is investigating the regional framework conditions for social innovation processes. The innovation ecosystems are empirically described with the help of innovation biographies. In this way, it will be possible to work out how different forms of social innovation and the interaction of local actors promote socio-ecological restructuring and thus strengthen the sustainable development of structurally weak regions.