Workshop at Technical University Vienna, June 11/12, 2026 | Submission deadline: 15 January, 2026
Organizers: Ariane Sept, Technical University Vienna, TUW (Until January 2026: Hochschule München) Ludger Gailing, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg, BTU Alexandra Retkowski, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg, BTU Alexander Hamedinger, Technical University Vienna, TUW
With the increasing importance of transdisciplinarity and the so-called third mission at universities and research institutes, transfer formats are becoming more significant also in social sciences. In this call we refer in particular to urban/regional sociology, spatial planning, and social work. While transfer in the fields of technological and economical research is associated with the market maturity of innovative products or the founding of start-ups or spin-offs from universities and institutes, the concept of transfer in the social sciences is still rather vague (Compagnucci & Spigarelli 2020). Although the field of social entrepreneurship is growing, start-ups in rural areas tend to be in the manufacturing sector and are generally more stable than in cities, as shown for Germany (Simmler & Garcia Dominguez 2025). In addition, co-creative transdisciplinary formats such as living labs for the creation of innovations have been established for some time (e.g. Marvin et al. 2018; Turnhout et al. 2020; Pentzold et al. 2023) though in the meantime labs have been criticized because of their tendency to ‘technocratize’ political decision making (Evans & Karvonen 2014) or because they miss to link with wider governance (Hodson et al. 2018). Furthermore, social sciences are often primarily assigned the role of accompaniment and limited to foster acceptance. In urban living labs and other transdisciplinary formats in cities, on the other hand, social sciences often play an active role, which is also widely discussed (e.g. Frehse et al. 2025). Far less attention is paid to transdisciplinary research and transfer in rural areas and larger regional contexts.
