2nd Round Table 2008

With the establishment of a multi-year research project at the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences, scientists from a wide range of disciplines want to investigate the effects of the transformation process on so-called structurally weak regions and identify the associated opportunities and problems for the region.

The expectations of the last 10 years for the development of structurally weak regions associated with the transformation process have remained unfulfilled. Today, transformation research is facing new challenges. It is evident that the theoretical prerequisites have not yet been adequately discussed and that complexity research has not been established or sufficiently institutionalized in this scientific segment. In order to understand the opportunities and risks of the transformation process and to be able to influence the development processes in structurally weak regions, scientific instruments must be adapted or newly developed. With the help of an interdisciplinary and complex research approach, the research group will tackle the new challenges and problems of the transformation process. The scientific results are to be utilized in other research fields and regions as well as economically. Everyone's perspectives are welcome: those of scientists and researchers, of regional and supra-regional players, of representatives from business and politics - they are all invited to take part in the debate. The aim here is to achieve a multi-layered and interdisciplinary discourse on the topic of transformation research, from a wide variety of perspectives and from as many interested participants as possible.

Society in transition What conditions do we find in so-called structurally weak regions, what risks need to be considered, what opportunities and endogenous potentials need to be exploited? What conditions enable economically fair and ecologically sustainable development? Where are the resources of a region characterized by structural problems, in which the necessary drivers of development are missing, and with the help of which processes can these be awakened and used? Can the transformation process be seen as an opportunity to break out of the routine, as a chance for a new development path?