Agnes Forster - REVIERa: A Platform Approach for Regional Sustainability Transitions

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. 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.
Speaker Bio: Prof. Agnes Förster holds the Chair of Planning Theory and Urban Development at the Faculty of Architecture at RWTH Aachen University. She obtained her degree in Architecture from TU Munich and EPFL Lausanne, followed by a doctoral degree in Urban Development from TU Munich. She researches and designs processes from the neighbourhood- to the regional levels with a focus on the effects of participatory planning approaches in the context of spatial transformation processes.
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The University of Alberta and RWTH Aachen joint lecture series is a month-long event in January 2024 investigating the topic of Sustainable Cities. Four lectures will be held throughout the month featuring professors from both institutions.
For more information:
www.ualberta.c...