Aktuelles Lehrangebot

Current Courses

Current Courses

Sarah Gottwald

Sustainable urban transformation of a cross-border city - a social-ecological systems approach

This course is planned for 2 semesters, where the following 4 steps will be realized: (1) Definition of research objective and design (first semester), (2) Co-creation of knowledge (first semester), (2) (re-)integration of knowledge to provide input for action-plans (second semester), and (3) knowledge communication and dissemination of results (second semester).

Currently there are two apparently opposing trends regarding national borders: growing nationalism demanding for more border protection or even border closure, and simultaneously very high cross-border mobility. While sometimes treated as rather abstract concepts or pass-through/transition areas within the European Union, cross-border regions are home to almost 40% of Europe’s population. This means, living close to the border or even cross-border is part of their everyday life, and tangible as well as intangible values are attributed to various places along and across the border. A specific case is the double city of Slubice and Frankfurt(Oder) at the Polish-German border. Every day, thousands of people cross the border at the innercity bridge over the Odra river. Here, abstract border and cross-border debates become very concrete and localized. The city governments aim for a sustainable cross-border city center that integrates the border bridge as the central points in an urban area of a ca. 1km radius, which is the focus of current planning activities.

Our course connects directly to these activities. The students will work together with different local stakeholder groups and practice partners on sustainable urban transformation visions and strategies. Our practice partners are 1) policy and planning authorities, specifically the cooperation center of Słubice and Frankfurt-O, and the Municipal development Advisory Council of Frankfurt-O, 2) the citizen-led city of SLUBFURT (https://nowa-amerika.eu/slubfurt-3/), and more-than human actors present in this cross-border social-ecological system.

Key parts of the first semester:

Part 1 Definition of research objective and design

The aim of the first part is to jointly frame the problem with local key partners, to form groups according to the students’ individual interests, to develop a basic understanding of project management, and to gain insights on key topics such as sustainable urban transformation and more-than human actors/multispecies justice.

Part 2 Co-creation of knowledge

The aim of the second part is to co-develop visions with each stakeholder group (Slubfurt, more-than human actors, citizens (survey), policy/planning). Furthermore, a first synthesis will be carried out in August to compile preliminary results and share them with stakeholders.

Ziel: • To apply transdisciplinary knowledge and methods in a concrete case of urban transformation. This application will allow students to deepen in their understanding of transdisciplinarity while directly acting in a real-world scenario.

• To understand the social-ecological dynamics in border regions, including the different challenges of bringing together multiple stakeholders.

• To co-create visions for sustainable urban development through a social-ecological systems perspective using participatory approaches.

Current Courses

Dr. Manuel Pacheco Romero

Basics of Inter- and Transdisciplinarity - lecture

Qualitative, semi-quantitative and quantitative methods for knowledge integration and identifying, framing and solving (sustainability) problems:

Stakeholder analysis, future scenarios and backcasting, assessment approaches, integrative approaches of problem transformation and solving, methods for designig and implementating collaborative processes (both transdisciplinary research approaches and approaches for supporting societal negotiation processes).

Ziel: The students acquire knowledge, skills and capabilities for purposefully engaging with sustainability problems in a project oriented way by: (i) understanding conceptual fundamentals of sustainability and respective problems, (ii) being able to apply a set of methods meaningfully to a given problem, (iii) being capable of identifying and discussing potentials and limitations of respective methods and the relevance of knowledge integration and achieving collaborative/participatory processes between science and society.