Building Collaborative Partnerships:
An Example of a 3rd Mission Activity
in the Field of Local Climate Change
Adaptation
Hardy Pundt and Andrea Heilmann
Abstract Reacting to climate change on the regional level requires strategies that
take into account various actors. Administrations as driving forces, but also NGOs,
enterprises, and citizens should collaborate to achieve sustainable decisions. Universities can moderate between the different actors due to their independent and
science-driven perspective. In such a way, building collaborative communities is
an indispensable requirement for achieving consensus between different interests,
goals, and approaches. The project “BebeR”, presented in this chapter, follows such
an approach. As an additional element, citizen science, an opportunity to consider
the participation of people who are not tied to scientific work in the development
of climate change adaptation measures, can contribute to the enhancement of the
acceptance of decisions and became part of the project. The collaborative approach
as it is applied in the project “BebeR”, in which a university is not only the coordinator, but in particular the moderator, indicates clearly a 3rd mission activity whereby
the university outreaches to local communities, organisations, enterprises, and the
public. This requires adequate communication structures, as well as transparent ITsupport. All components and the diverse participants form a living laboratory. The
chapter presents the overall approach, and the process of building the collaborative
partnerships. Some insights into the methods and IT services that proofed to be
effective supporting tools will be given. Restrictions, limiting factors and barriers
are discussed and conclusions are presented as well as recommendations for future
work.
Keywords Climate change adaptation · Collaborative project · Participation ·
Citizen science
H. Pundt (B) · A. Heilmann
Department of Automation and Computer Science, University of Applied
Sciences, Friedrichstr. 57-59, 38855 Wernigerode, Germany
e-mail: hpundt@hs-harz.de
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
W. Leal Filho et al. (eds.), Universities as Living Labs for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15604-6_38
621
An Example of a 3rd Mission Activity
in the Field of Local Climate Change
Adaptation
Hardy Pundt and Andrea Heilmann
Abstract Reacting to climate change on the regional level requires strategies that
take into account various actors. Administrations as driving forces, but also NGOs,
enterprises, and citizens should collaborate to achieve sustainable decisions. Universities can moderate between the different actors due to their independent and
science-driven perspective. In such a way, building collaborative communities is
an indispensable requirement for achieving consensus between different interests,
goals, and approaches. The project “BebeR”, presented in this chapter, follows such
an approach. As an additional element, citizen science, an opportunity to consider
the participation of people who are not tied to scientific work in the development
of climate change adaptation measures, can contribute to the enhancement of the
acceptance of decisions and became part of the project. The collaborative approach
as it is applied in the project “BebeR”, in which a university is not only the coordinator, but in particular the moderator, indicates clearly a 3rd mission activity whereby
the university outreaches to local communities, organisations, enterprises, and the
public. This requires adequate communication structures, as well as transparent ITsupport. All components and the diverse participants form a living laboratory. The
chapter presents the overall approach, and the process of building the collaborative
partnerships. Some insights into the methods and IT services that proofed to be
effective supporting tools will be given. Restrictions, limiting factors and barriers
are discussed and conclusions are presented as well as recommendations for future
work.
Keywords Climate change adaptation · Collaborative project · Participation ·
Citizen science
H. Pundt (B) · A. Heilmann
Department of Automation and Computer Science, University of Applied
Sciences, Friedrichstr. 57-59, 38855 Wernigerode, Germany
e-mail: hpundt@hs-harz.de
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
W. Leal Filho et al. (eds.), Universities as Living Labs for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15604-6_38
621