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There is a need on various governance levels to meet the challenges that structurally weak rural regions face. In addition to local and regional actors representatives of the national and European level have to address specific problems like the lack of specialized workers, social exclusion, poverty, financial limitations and crumbling infrastructure. The RurInno researchers and practitioners discussed the possible impact of social entrepreneurs in this matter with representatives of regional and rural policy on the European level on the occasion of the Policy Round Table “Social Entrepreneurship as Driver of Change in Marginalised Rural Europe” on May 23, 2017, in Brussels. more info

From April 14 to June 30, 2017, Dr. Ludger Gailing (prov. head of the IRS Research Department "Institutional Change and Regional Public Goods") will conduct research at the Durham Energy Institute and the Department of Geography at Durham University. This stay abroad is made possible by a "senior research fellowship" of the University, which is supported within the COFUND-scheme of the European Commission (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions). The stay in Durham is part of Gailing's habilitation project "Reconfiguring Energy Spaces: The Role of Spatial Governmentalities and Competing Socio-Materialities" at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. more info

In December 2016, the IRS started the European Training Network “Social Entrepreneurship in Structurally Weak Rural Regions: Analysing Innovative Troubleshooters in Action” (RurAction). With the recruitment process for the Early Stage Researchers on the way, the project launched its website in late February. For the coming three-and-a-half years, it will serve as the main hub for information on the project, its researchers, topics and outcomes. more info

The European Training Network RurAction (“Social Entrepreneurship in Structurally Weak Rural Regions: Analysing Innovative Troubleshooters in Action”) announces 10 positions for Early-Stage Researchers with the option of awarding the doctoral degree. The positions last 36 months and are expected to begin between September and November 2017. more info

Changes in the production of goods, in consumption patterns and transportation are forcing urban quarters to adapt. In recent times, there has been a significant rise in the quantity of goods ordered and delivered. Increasingly, groceries for immediate consumption are also being ordered and delivered, alongside other more common products. The resultant rise in the quantity of transported goods, and the emergence of an intricate delivery network, poses a major challenge for cities: as ever more delivery vehicles navigate city streets, pollution and traffic congestion increase, while traffic accidents become more likely. Germany's Federal Ministry of Education and Research has launched the 'Urban quarter 4.0' (Stadtquartier 4.0) research project to identify and experiment with solutions to the above mentioned challenges. more info

Crises rarely occur in isolation from one another. Only by using this dictum one can grasp what can be witnessed today: a growing number of increasingly interconnected crises. Recurring financial and economic crises, municipalities and counties burdened by austerity measures, the effects of demographic and climate change, global migration flows, and increasingly polarised societies mean that cities and regions in particular face great challenges. more info

In August 1876, Richard Wagner's opera cycle “The Ring of the Nibelung” premiered at the Bayreuth Festival Theatre. The epochal music drama draws on a number of myths and legends. Apart from Siegfried, Brunhilde, Hagen, and Etzel, a river plays a pivotal role: the Rhine, where the legendary Rhine gold starts off the narrative. Coincidentally, the year 1876 is an important year for river Rhine in an entirely different context, too. The year in which the “Ring Cycle” premiered also marks the conclusion of one of the largest landscape construction projects in recent European history. From 1817 and 1876, the Upper Rhine was shortened by 80 kilometres (!) between Basel and Mannheim. more info

The Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space (IRS) in Erkner near Berlin has successfully applied for a research and training network in the highly competetive „Marie-Skłodowska-Curie“ programme of the European Union. Twelve research institutes and social enterprises from seven European countries, coordinated by the IRS, will offer a structured doctoral training on social entrepreneurship in structurally weak rural regions. The doctoral candidates will conduct research guided by the question of which innovative solutions the social entrepreneurs can offer to tackle the economic and social downward spirals in these regions. The project will run for four years and has a budget of 2.5 million Euros. more info

Anyone who experiments is suspending the conventional conditions for a certain period and looking for explanations outside the patterns that are already known to us. Across all sciences and contexts, it would appear that the defining characteristics of an experiment are the fact that it is new, and that it is temporary. Based on a current IRS research project on temporary use, Thomas Honeck and Jan Zwilling discuss what an experiment in the urban context can look like, and what significance the desire to innovate and time limits have. more info