DoNaPart

The project team is setting up an empowerment workshop in Dortmund's Westerfilde-Bodelschwingh district. Together with local stakeholders, the project partners design and implement participatory measures along the three fields of action 'sustainable energy use', 'multimodal mobility' and 'collaborative consumption'. Possible activities include the initiation of community gardens or repair cafés, a cargo bike rental service, an exchange for the formation of commuter communities, the establishment of a network for regional food supply or the offer of climate protection coaching. The planned participation measures are embedded in a comprehensive empirical evaluation concept. Representative surveys before and during the activities deal with the psychological, social and spatial aspects of empowerment. In addition, the quality of life in the district and environmental behavior in the three fields of action are recorded. Surveys in a comparative neighborhood will be used to empirically test the effects of the project. In addition, the participation activities of the empowerment workshop will be evaluated individually.

1) Initiation and evaluation of participation processes in the three fields of action 'sustainable energy use', 'multimodal mobility' and 'collaborative consumption';

2) Analysis of the interdependencies between local participation and psychological and communal empowerment;

3) Investigation of the spatial prerequisites and effects of participation and empowerment processes in sustainable urban redevelopment;

4) Recommendations for action for actors in municipalities, politics and civil society to promote sustainable transformation in large cities that are particularly affected by structural change and changes in the social structure.

Socio-ecological change in the city is a joint task. One of the central challenges lies in shaping this process in a participatory manner and empowering people from all social milieus to realize their own ideas of sustainability and quality of life. This was also the focus of the project "Dortmund. Sustainability. Participation." - DoNaPart for short.

The aim was to empower citizens to get involved in shaping their district in order to improve the local quality of life through collective action.

On Friday, October 11, 2019, the project participants from the Reallabor contexts Dortmund (Prof. Marcel Hunecke, DoNaPart), Karlsruhe (Dr. Oliver Parodi, Quartier Zukunft - Labor Stadt) and Wuppertal (Jun.-Prof. Dr. Karoline Augenstein and Jun.-Prof. Dr. Alexandra Palzkill, Reallabor Wuppertal) presented their findings and experiences. The discussion in the afternoon focused on the exchange with the participants from science and practice about their real-world laboratory experiences. For example, the focus was on how people can be motivated and empowered to participate. The transformation bazaar, where various real-world laboratories from all over Germany presented themselves, was also a focal point for exchange.

DoNaPart was a joint research project of the Fachhochschule Dortmund, the Wuppertal Institute, the Institute for Regional and Urban Development Research (ILS) and the "nordwärts" project of the City of Dortmund. In a real-world laboratory in the Dortmund district of Westerfilde-Bodelschwingh, the project brought together residents, politicians and scientists to develop ideas, implement concrete projects and build up psychological, social and institutional resources for socio-ecological change. The aim was to improve the quality of life and make the neighborhood a more liveable and sustainable place through joint commitment. The focus was on ideas and actions in the areas of energy, mobility and consumption.

The project was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research as part of the 'Socio-ecological research' funding priority under the 'Sustainable transformation of urban areas' funding measure.