The Platform Approach

Abstract

In 2019, the German federal parliament issued a report on a nationwide exit strategy for coal-fired power stations. With this, the Rhenish lignite mining area – a region populated by 2.1 million people and located between Cologne, Aachen, Monchengladbach, and Dusseldorf – was confronted with unprecedented change. The fundamental political decision provoked a multitude of actions on all federal levels of government. Other institutions with historical partnerships in the region, such as the RWTH Aachen University, became embroiled, too. The ongoing transformation process has become an opportunity to rethink and further develop the role of the university as an intermediary in the region. In 2019, a group of researchers from different disciplines set up REVIERa as a transformation platform to strengthen interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary exchange, networking, and coordination. The platform has become an exploratory space both for researchers and regional partners; it has been set up with the hypothesis that knowledge is a key resource to shaping transformation processes. More importantly, it is based on the premise that existing knowledge becomes transformative when new linkages are stimulated. In transformation processes, system, goal, and transformation knowledge are highly related and fluid in the face of highly complex situations and uncertain outcomes. Analogous to the human brain, REVIERa aims to create new synapses that dissolve deadlocked patterns and hence open paths into the future. In this vein, the platform develops innovative methods that follow the principles of reflexivity, resonance, and open learning. This paper addresses the evolution of this platform and evaluates its activities and transformative moments, as well as its inherent contradictions and limitations.

Notes

1 The name refers to the Rhenish Lignite Mining Area (in German “Rheinisches Revier”) and the RWTH Aachen University located in Aachen.

2 RWTH Aachen University, with its external funding of 404 million Euros in 2020, is associated with a wide range of innovative projects in fruitful cooperation with private and public partnerships including in the immediate region: https://www.rwth-aachen.de/global/show_document.asp?id=aaaaaaaabdbomkn&download=1

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Agnes Förster

Professor Agnes Förster is a Professor for Planning Theory and Urban Development at the Faculty of Architecture at RWTH Aachen University. She researches and designs processes from the neighbourhood to regional level with a focus on the effects of participatory planning approaches in the context of spatial transformation processes.

Eva Strobel

Dipl.-Ing. Eva Strobel M. Sc. worked as a research associate at the Chair of Planning Theory and Urban Development in the Faculty of Architecture at RWTH Aachen University from 2019 to September 2022. Her focus was on the designability of change and transformation processes, and she was engaged in the operative and procedural design of the REVIERa transformation platform.

Stefan Böschen

Professor Stefan Böschen is a Professor for Society and Technology at the Human Technology Center (HumTec) RWTH Aachen University, a spokesperson for HumTec and Co-Director of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg “Cultures of Research”. His research areas are science and technology studies, technology assessment and transformation research.

Peter Letmathe

Professor Peter Letmathe is a Professor of Management Accounting at RWTH Aachen University in the School of Business and Economics. His research comprises the fields of controlling intra- and interorganisational transformation processes, value chain management, and sustainability accounting.

Maren Paegert

Maren Paegert, M.Sc. is a research assistant at the Chair of Management Accounting at RWTH Aachen University. In her research and work, she focuses on sustainable transformation processes, especially in the area of mobility.