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H. Pundt and A. Heilmann
barrier. One is to contact the superior managers to force the employees to contribute
to the projects tasks. However, this way the impression may arise that the new tasks
are superimposed and therefore the willingness to carry out the “extra work” is not
very high. Within the “BebeR”-project, this approach helped at least in the form that
the project goals were communicated in detail to all potentially relevant actors, but
finally accepted by the administrational leaders that were invited. This supported
significantly to achieve the goal of getting access to the persons in charge. A second
pathway to get people into the “project boat” was established through the introductory
workshops. They were announced to all potential collaborators from administration,
private organizations, enterprises, and other institutions. The answers concerning
the first invitation covered a wide range from “not interested” to “enthusiastic”. An
interesting experience within the “BebeR”-project has been the fact that those who
participated in the Kick-off meeting, stayed over a longer period and were interested
in the progress of the project. The moderating role of the university, however, was
a key feature from our point of view. During the workshops, as well as during the
communication between the meetings, various problems arose that had to be tackled
in an unbiased way. The goal was to establish adaptation measures that are accepted
by all actors. This required clearly finding compromises. To deal with different
meanings—and personalities—meant to accept the project situation with its different
characteristics, and being disposed to find manageable and sustainable compromises.
The Thomas-Kilman Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) (Thomas and Kilman 2018)
indicates different stages of cooperation and involves potential problematic situations
even during the communication of various actors. The moderating unit has the task
to find solutions if problems occur, and to deal with the problem in a way that is
appreciated by all partners. This may be followed by a shift, or avoidance, however,
it should be handled in the sense of compromise finding (Fig. 6). Compromising is
moderate in both assertiveness and cooperativeness. Consequently, the objective in
a multi-actor project must be to find some expedient, mutually acceptable solutions
that partially satisfy both parties (Thomas and Kilman 2018). Within BebeR, the
moderation of the living lab worked, and works, quite well using elements of the TKI.
However, this does not mean that no problems occurred or putative barriers between
goal settings of different actors were identified. It is very dependent on the readiness
of actors if the will to achieve sustainable results can overweight the barriers. During
this process, the coordination and moderation process, which must be based on the
balanced consideration of the conflicting viewpoints, is very important.
5 Conclusions
The mitigation of consequences of climate change plays a major role on the regional,
and local scale. This initial discovery led to the implementation of a collaborative network of different actors within the project “BebeR”. Within this project, the reduction
of site-related erosion in small river catchments that are vulnerable to heavy rainfall
has been defined as one important goal. To achieve measures to mitigate the poten-
H. Pundt and A. Heilmann
barrier. One is to contact the superior managers to force the employees to contribute
to the projects tasks. However, this way the impression may arise that the new tasks
are superimposed and therefore the willingness to carry out the “extra work” is not
very high. Within the “BebeR”-project, this approach helped at least in the form that
the project goals were communicated in detail to all potentially relevant actors, but
finally accepted by the administrational leaders that were invited. This supported
significantly to achieve the goal of getting access to the persons in charge. A second
pathway to get people into the “project boat” was established through the introductory
workshops. They were announced to all potential collaborators from administration,
private organizations, enterprises, and other institutions. The answers concerning
the first invitation covered a wide range from “not interested” to “enthusiastic”. An
interesting experience within the “BebeR”-project has been the fact that those who
participated in the Kick-off meeting, stayed over a longer period and were interested
in the progress of the project. The moderating role of the university, however, was
a key feature from our point of view. During the workshops, as well as during the
communication between the meetings, various problems arose that had to be tackled
in an unbiased way. The goal was to establish adaptation measures that are accepted
by all actors. This required clearly finding compromises. To deal with different
meanings—and personalities—meant to accept the project situation with its different
characteristics, and being disposed to find manageable and sustainable compromises.
The Thomas-Kilman Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) (Thomas and Kilman 2018)
indicates different stages of cooperation and involves potential problematic situations
even during the communication of various actors. The moderating unit has the task
to find solutions if problems occur, and to deal with the problem in a way that is
appreciated by all partners. This may be followed by a shift, or avoidance, however,
it should be handled in the sense of compromise finding (Fig. 6). Compromising is
moderate in both assertiveness and cooperativeness. Consequently, the objective in
a multi-actor project must be to find some expedient, mutually acceptable solutions
that partially satisfy both parties (Thomas and Kilman 2018). Within BebeR, the
moderation of the living lab worked, and works, quite well using elements of the TKI.
However, this does not mean that no problems occurred or putative barriers between
goal settings of different actors were identified. It is very dependent on the readiness
of actors if the will to achieve sustainable results can overweight the barriers. During
this process, the coordination and moderation process, which must be based on the
balanced consideration of the conflicting viewpoints, is very important.
5 Conclusions
The mitigation of consequences of climate change plays a major role on the regional,
and local scale. This initial discovery led to the implementation of a collaborative network of different actors within the project “BebeR”. Within this project, the reduction
of site-related erosion in small river catchments that are vulnerable to heavy rainfall
has been defined as one important goal. To achieve measures to mitigate the poten-