Valentin Mühlich
Research Associate | Economy and Civil Society

Valentin Mühlich has been a research associate in the "Economy and Civil Society" Research Group at the IRS since March 2025, where he is involved in the lead project. His research focuses on social practices of sharing and their transformative potential.

Valentin Mühlich studied urban design at the Technische Universität Berlin, with a semester abroad at ENSA Nantes. In his master's thesis, he explored environmental activism and social negotiation processes in "Regime and Space in the fight for environmental protection in Lusatia." Before his master's degree, he studied architecture and urban planning at the University of Stuttgart, where he worked at the interface of sociology and urban planning during a semester abroad in Colombia, among other things, in a design project on the ‘resocialisation’ of prisoners in connection with the reactivation of a neighbourhood in Bogotá through community urban agriculture.

As an interdisciplinary researcher, he is interested in the relational connections between society and space. He plans to develop his dissertation project as part of the future lead project research of the research focus. The project, which will run from January 2026, will deal with the transformative potential of "sharing."

Projects

Ongoing Lead Projects

In times of polycrisis, collective actors are developing alternative forms of economic activities and social interactions. These include, for example, collective enterprises, cooperatives, or other shared ownership models, which are emerging in response to societal challenges in local niches. Through innovative organisational structures and practices, they contribute to solving social challenges. The project "Caring – Valuating – Transitioning" examines how these novel forms of economic activity and social interaction contribute to broader societal transitions and how the underlying values are negotiated and legitimised. To this end, the researchers collaborate with local initiatives and organisations. more info

Selected Publications by Year

2023
Mühlich, V. (2023). Constitution of Space by Action in the Dynamics of Democratic Protests in Public Space. Protocol, (13).

Selected Publications by Type

Contribution to Special Interest Journal
Mühlich, V. (2023). Constitution of Space by Action in the Dynamics of Democratic Protests in Public Space. Protocol, (13).

Talks

2025
Spataial approaches to transitions

October/01/2025