Based on a fundamental understanding of the sustainability discourse, the importance of institutions and innovations for a societal transformation process, the course focuses particularly on institutional innovations at the regional level. Pioneers of change are experimenting with institutional innovations such as community solar power plants, community-supported agriculture, sharing initiatives, open technology labs, co-working spaces, etc.
What you can expect:
- Formal and informal structures of institutional innovations at the regional level and their potential contribution to a sustainability transformation
- Critical reflection on the historical concept of the Great Transformation (K. Polanyi) and the transformation called for by the United Nations to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
- Understanding the significance of societal rules/norms/institutions and regional innovations for societal transformation processes
What you can take away:
- The ability to identify prototypes of institutional innovations and assess their potential for upscaling/outscaling and their transformative capacity
- Knowledge of selected theoretical foundations of institutional analysis and the ability to apply them to new sustainability solutions at the regional level e.g., consumption-production partnerships (citizen solar power plants, community-supported agriculture, food co-operations, etc.), crowdsourcing/sharing initiatives, open technology labs, and co-creation/co-working spaces
- Knowledge of processes, methods, and tools for regional transformation management and their application
- Ability to develop, implement, and adaptively improve institutional innovations for a sustainability transformation