Co-creating Regional Strategies for the Bioeconomic Transformation in Brandenburg, Germany, through online community engagement during COVID

Lirum Ipsum

Work at TU Potsdam at the project DiReBio

THE QUESTION

The shift to a bio-based economy affects every municipality, influencing lifestyles, business operations, agriculture, supply chains, and nature conservation. It also creates tensions between environmental protection, food production, and resource use. DiReBio brings together regional stakeholders—from agriculture, industry, trade, education, ecology, and civic life—to explore future scenarios for this transformation. Using group decision-making methods, system analysis, and hands-on idea development, the project facilitates workshops to co-create strategic visions.These visions are reviewed by children and young people for clarity and feasibility, ensuring that future generations’ perspectives are included. The outcome: regional strategies and concrete actions—political, economic, ecological, and social—developed collaboratively and open to public evaluation.

MY ROLE

I set up the entire process in the online environment Mural and iterated on it with the DiReBio team. In addition, I networked and maintained contact with people involved in the project, including biologists with extensive knowledge of the topic.

THE PURPOSE OF  DESIGN THINKING 

To collaboratively develop practical and innovative strategies for the bioeconomic transformation by deeply understanding the needs of regional stakeholders, co-creating solutions across sectors, and iteratively refining them based on feedback from both current and future generations.

    CO-CREATION & DESIGN PROCESS

    Phase 1

    Project Onboarding

    Getting onboarded to the research project DiReBio

    Phase 2

    Re-design from physical to digital co-creation due to COVID

    Designing the co-creation process in Mural

    Phase 3

    Internal test run

    Showcasing the design and iterating on it

    Phase 4

    Bioeconomy Co-creation

    First test runs of the bioeconomy co-creation workshop online with participants from comunes in Berlin-Brandenburg

    Phase 5

    Analysis

    Analysing the data of the workshop

    Phase 6

    Research handover

    Handing over the research documents