Kick-off event for the Nucleus sub-project 'The transformative potential of sharing'

On 22 April, the kick-off event for the Nucleus sub-project 'The transformative potential of sharing' took place at Haus auf der Mauer (Jena) at 14:00.

The sub-project of the joint project Nucleus Jena - Transfer. Regional. Sustainable deals with these questions: How can research support transformative innovations in social practice? How does the practice of transformation-orientated research help to become more sensitive to the challenges of specific actors? With these questions in mind, the project 'The Transformative Potential of Sharing', which has been based at the Institute of Sociology at FSU Jena since 2023, is developing a reciprocal transfer concept in which practice partners from the Jena region and FSU students jointly test new relationships to property, ownership and new concepts of sharing. As a Nucleus sub-project, the project 'The Transformative Potential of Sharing' promotes innovation specifically by mediating between the research content of the Collaborative Research Centre/Transregio294 'Structural Change of Ownership' and various actors from different areas of the sharing economy (e.g. car sharing, couchsurfing, etc.). With a view to university studies, the project also sees itself as a contribution to education for sustainable development, which is to be realised through the transformative embedding of learning and research in the dynamics of everyday local life. 

Networking of students with practice partners

The kick-off event provided an opportunity to introduce the format to students at the Institute of Sociology at FSU Jena and to bring together various practice partners with whom students can develop micro-projects as part of the format. The project aims to establish collaborations between students and social actors who practise various forms of sharing and participation (in the areas of transport, housing, culture, etc.). The format consists of supporting students and practice partners in the conception and realisation of micro-projects in which new concepts of sharing and new ownership relationships can be tested. As part of the kick-off event, students were made aware of the possibility of such cooperation. Students can thus gain project-based practical experience. As part of the internship module, micro-projects are carried out by students in connection with a practice centre in which sharing concepts and participatory concepts of work, consumption and the design of everyday spaces are tested. This cooperation is accompanied by a teaching-research workshop and the practical experience is elaborated in the form of a scientifically written practical report, the results of which will be presented at a 'Sharing Symposium Thuringia' planned for October 2024.

The following people contributed to the programme: Jörg Oberthür (project manager), Bettina Hollstein (presentation of the successful example of the sustainability foundation course at the University of Erfurt), Norbert Sauter ('Flussland' - practice partner in the field of agriculture), Martin Abramowski (Sustainability Centre Thuringia - network of potential practice partners in Thuringia), Leon Gerdes ('Stadtteilförderung Wohnen und Kultur e.V - practice partner).