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H. Kanning et al.
stakeholder network, enabling them to generate the financial resources needed to
operate a real-world laboratory.
Scientific and practitioner stakeholders often face the same challenges when establishing the research process, because the interests of many stakeholders must be
accommodated when it comes to complex transformation processes. There is always
a need to formulate issues in a practically relevant as well as scientifically interesting
and challenging manner at the constituent stage of the project, irrespective of the
real-world laboratory initiator’s institutional background. It is only the weighting
of the practical and scientific relevance that may vary to a certain extent. The good
position of a research-affine practitioner stakeholder may make it easier to develop
stable stakeholder networks for the purpose of achieving cooperation among the
relevant practitioner stakeholders, but the various aspects of effective participation
must be borne in mind nonetheless. On the other hand, practitioner stakeholders find
it particularly challenging to find scientific partners from several disciplines who go
along with a joint problem definition and who are not only interested in obtaining
data or conducting purely scientific experiments. In addition, social or economic
practitioners who have initiated real-world laboratories tend to be challenged more
by the need for experience in methods of knowledge integration and modelling for
the purpose of transferring results. One solution for this may be to seek support
from experienced transdisciplinary researchers and to involve these experts in the
conceptual design stage of the real-world laboratory.
Based on these findings, real-world laboratories led by practitioner stakeholders
offer particularly favourable conditions when they are backed by local authorities or
public bodies. Strong local governments have excellent links; they know the stakeholders’ interests; they have experience in planning participatory processes, which
can be largely transferred to real-world laboratories (Eckart et al. 2018: 131ff); they
can perpetuate transdisciplinary research, ensuring continuity and, on this basis,
learning processes. However, small and medium-sized towns, and towns undergoing
socio-economic structural change that feature disproportionate demographics are
often under financial supervision and rarely have the human resources capacity to be
able to undertake the research that is urgently required for their strategic realignment.
Such local authorities therefore tend to be unable to support real-world laboratories,
which means that they are only rarely able to incorporate their particular problems in
research projects. Consequently, support structures are required to make real-world
laboratories accessible to all local authority types.
Against this backdrop, real-world laboratories should not only be financed by
research funding in the future, but at least in equal parts by structural support from
the relevant ministries (e.g. the Ministry of Energy and/or the Ministry for Economic
Affairs). After all, besides producing effects in research and science, real-world laboratories (are supposed to) actively drive forward transformation towards a sustainable
society (see Kanning and Scurrell 2018).
Several recent changes in science and structural policy will improve the conditions for real-world laboratories initiated by practitioner stakeholders in future. These
include a greater shift towards citizen science, including its transformation towards
to more complex civic research beyond mere data collection. Citizens are more
H. Kanning et al.
stakeholder network, enabling them to generate the financial resources needed to
operate a real-world laboratory.
Scientific and practitioner stakeholders often face the same challenges when establishing the research process, because the interests of many stakeholders must be
accommodated when it comes to complex transformation processes. There is always
a need to formulate issues in a practically relevant as well as scientifically interesting
and challenging manner at the constituent stage of the project, irrespective of the
real-world laboratory initiator’s institutional background. It is only the weighting
of the practical and scientific relevance that may vary to a certain extent. The good
position of a research-affine practitioner stakeholder may make it easier to develop
stable stakeholder networks for the purpose of achieving cooperation among the
relevant practitioner stakeholders, but the various aspects of effective participation
must be borne in mind nonetheless. On the other hand, practitioner stakeholders find
it particularly challenging to find scientific partners from several disciplines who go
along with a joint problem definition and who are not only interested in obtaining
data or conducting purely scientific experiments. In addition, social or economic
practitioners who have initiated real-world laboratories tend to be challenged more
by the need for experience in methods of knowledge integration and modelling for
the purpose of transferring results. One solution for this may be to seek support
from experienced transdisciplinary researchers and to involve these experts in the
conceptual design stage of the real-world laboratory.
Based on these findings, real-world laboratories led by practitioner stakeholders
offer particularly favourable conditions when they are backed by local authorities or
public bodies. Strong local governments have excellent links; they know the stakeholders’ interests; they have experience in planning participatory processes, which
can be largely transferred to real-world laboratories (Eckart et al. 2018: 131ff); they
can perpetuate transdisciplinary research, ensuring continuity and, on this basis,
learning processes. However, small and medium-sized towns, and towns undergoing
socio-economic structural change that feature disproportionate demographics are
often under financial supervision and rarely have the human resources capacity to be
able to undertake the research that is urgently required for their strategic realignment.
Such local authorities therefore tend to be unable to support real-world laboratories,
which means that they are only rarely able to incorporate their particular problems in
research projects. Consequently, support structures are required to make real-world
laboratories accessible to all local authority types.
Against this backdrop, real-world laboratories should not only be financed by
research funding in the future, but at least in equal parts by structural support from
the relevant ministries (e.g. the Ministry of Energy and/or the Ministry for Economic
Affairs). After all, besides producing effects in research and science, real-world laboratories (are supposed to) actively drive forward transformation towards a sustainable
society (see Kanning and Scurrell 2018).
Several recent changes in science and structural policy will improve the conditions for real-world laboratories initiated by practitioner stakeholders in future. These
include a greater shift towards citizen science, including its transformation towards
to more complex civic research beyond mere data collection. Citizens are more