INSOLA - Integrated Social Space Education and Sustainable Social Space Development in Lusatia

Below, we present an outline of a social science research protocol for transdisciplinary, participatory field research aimed at achieving a “good life” through sustainable and effective social space development in the region.

The Project

The INSOLA project aims to conduct a complex social space analysis as the foundation for a continuous, learning-based updating of the social space development analysis, which in turn serves as the basis for long-term changes in the region through social space development work. Through the systematic documentation and analysis of social needs in areas such as aging within the generational structure, medicine, care, disability, housing, mobility, as well as civic engagement and democracy, the project creates a solid knowledge base upon which future developments can build. In this sense, this foundation of analytical social space development work is crucial for the targeted further development of social infrastructure, for the establishment and maintenance of sustainable networks, and for strengthening regional resilience in addressing the region’s structural problems. The INSOLA project aims to help social innovations take effect not in isolation, but within the relational framework of the social space as a network structure.

A key contribution to structural change lies in creating synergies among stakeholders by working to build local networks within the social space. At the same time, local stakeholders are empowered to develop, adapt, and share sustainable solutions on their own within a constantly changing social space, so that the formation of the social space continues not as a one-time process, but as a dynamic, collectively shaped transformation toward sustainable and effective development.

In this way, the goal is to develop—based on the idea of a cooperative-style civic umbrella organization focused on social infrastructure—a sustainable, idea-centered organizational structure that cooperatively integrates the interests of the stakeholders, one that will endure beyond the project and contribute in the long term to the stabilization and further development of the social infrastructure in Lusatia (with a focus on the Görlitz district).

The value of the INSOLA project stems from its overall design. This is because it involves a social space development analysis and social space development effort grounded in participatory social research and characterized by continuous learning throughout the project’s duration. The target area is Lusatia, with a focus on the Görlitz district and its functionally linked surroundings.

Effective and sustainable social space development is the outcome of this social investment project because, within the consortium structure comprising “Soziales Netzwerk Lausitz gGmbH” (SNL) and the Seminar on Cooperative Studies at the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences at the University of Cologne, a communicative revitalization process aimed at unlocking social development potential to enhance local and regional resilience is to be facilitated through dialogue with social space stakeholders.

Resilience here refers to the development of social resources for creatively addressing individual—yet simultaneously always shared locally and regionally (in solidarity)—development tasks, which must be shaped as challenges of social change.

Thematically, the focus is on the entire complex of social needs related to aging within the intergenerational structure, in the context of the living environment (neighborhood; district) and mobility within the region. Thus, INSOLA falls within the sphere of responsibility for municipal public services.

In this context, social space development refers to support through social investment (“empowering” capacity-building = “capability” = the interplay between social investments in abilities and social investments in capacities) of people through local and regional networks, the benefits of which lie (1) in social cohesion, (2) in social integration (social inclusion), and in social support (social coping). Added to this is (4) the civic revitalization of local/regional democracy (joint self-governance) within municipal public services. Cooperative potential unfolds here into collaborations because the involved actors develop together through shared learning in a systemically oriented manner.

This social capital-generating network formation is embedded in the growth process of trust capital through participatory, learning-based social space development analysis, thereby sustainably and effectively enhancing people’s subjective sense of coherence (meaningfulness, comprehensibility, manageability of everyday life over the course of one’s life) is sustainably and effectively enhanced. The sense of coherence is a dimension of the subjective aspect of local and regional resilience and enhances the politically defined sense of resonance in people’s relationship to the world with regard to changes in life contexts, in the sense of a psychodynamically comprehensible, responsive phenomenology. Overall, the aim is to promote life-management competencies (“everyday human capital” as a lifeworld resource for navigating life).

Also integrated into the overall design of learning-based, participatory social space development is the enhancement of people’s digital affinity as a dimension of a general attitude of openness and, thus, as a foundation for the development of digital competencies with a view to digital solution perspectives within the analog world of lifeworld networks.

Upon completion of the project, the INSOLA project aims to leave behind a forward-looking social space whose further development will be underpinned (1) by the social space analysis database, (2) by a handbook of best practices for social space development analysis work—which, in the spirit of knowledge transfer, demonstrates transregional scalability—(3) by the analytical and strategic capacity-building of “Soziales Netzwerk Lausitz gGmbH” achieved through the development of methodological expertise as a regional agency for social space revitalization, and (4) through the effort to provide the social space with an effective and sustainable organizational framework, e.g., through a (nonprofit) cooperative structure, although other legal forms may well be functionally equivalent. However, the concept of a civic “social infrastructure cooperative”—is, on the whole, gaining significant momentum nationwide (e.g., in the context of a so-called “health region”) and possesses a particularly identity-forming, unifying power.

INSOLA, with its ultimate vision of a civic infrastructure cooperative—as a participatory, dialogic, and socially investment-oriented social space project—is at the same time a democratic contribution to the development of local and regional public services, learning, and development within an intergenerational framework. The consortium team will not operate within the social space in the condescending manner of educational paternalism, but rather with empathetic mindfulness and through dialogue on an equal footing as partners, that is, by meeting people where they are—thinking and working systemically—and taking them on a journey of local/regional self-transformation (as “self-transcendence”). In this process, the values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the UN Conventions on Fundamental Rights, the European Charter of Fundamental Rights (GRC), the German Basic Law (GG), and the Social Code, etc., are decisive, binding, guiding, and orienting. The work involves social-morphological analysis using further developed variations of the KDA/DHW-PosIA Index (an index for measuring the innovativeness of social innovation for successful aging) in the form of an index of social innovations in intergenerational relationships as well as a democracy culture index.

Design

The transdisciplinary and participatory social space analysis is conducted within a complex methodological design of reconstructive social research to generate data for software-supported quantitative and qualitative network analysis. Geographic mapping will substantially depict the structure of the relational fabric based on “social portraits” of the social entities operating within the social space of public services. The development of a “morphological framework” serves to establish a typology based on the unity of structural characteristics and functional purpose. In doing so, the entire spectrum of social entities—characterized by pluralistic organizational structures and governed by economic and social organizational law (and thus including varying degrees of formality and informality)—is taken into account.

The goal is to create a sociomorphological sociomatrix of the county. Building on a software-supported landscape map (geographic mapping), this incorporates both a quantitative and a qualitative network analysis, both of which are ontologically adequate—that is, optimally linking the subject matter on the one hand with the research interest on the other.

The quantitative, software-supported analysis is structurally oriented and depicts the relational structure of the social space, focusing on forms of centrality, forms of asymmetry, nodes, edges, density, subgroups, forms of ties, etc. The qualitative analysis is based on a so-called “morphological framework” to be developed and constitutes a hermeneutics of the form of meaning and functionalities—related to social structures as modes of expression—in order to reconstruct the organizational ethos as a habitual program code.

Part of the design also includes an organizational-biographical analysis of the SNL as a contribution to the development of a theory of generative agencies in social space formation and with the aim of equipping the SNL with methods of social research and social space analysis.

This social space analysis is integrated into the landscape of social structures through ongoing, learning-oriented systemic communication work and is further developed collaboratively through various modes of feedback work and various event formats for discourse. In light of the “legal” value space focused on social inclusion, the aim is thus to integrate a learning-based social space development analysis with deliberative communication work.

Within the collaborative project, the “Lausitz Social Network” (SNL) is responsible for communication, raising awareness, and feeding the project’s progress back into the field. At its core is a communicative-discursive concept that relies on low-threshold event formats, targeted public relations, and multidimensional knowledge transfer. The goal is to make the processes and results of the consortium partner, the University of Cologne, accessible to experts, public administration, civil society, and policymakers.

The communication concept of the SNL subproject goes beyond traditional public relations and includes, among other things, analog and hybrid event formats tailored to specific target groups in the aforementioned fields of action. The event formats include, among others: social space dialogues as small-scale exchange formats, expert-led workshops with speakers on the thematic fields of action, and social space conferences as open and multi-perspective forums for reflecting on and further developing the results.

Formal Project Framework

Funding is provided by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space (BMFTR). The project management organization is Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH. The project is part of the “Innovation & Structural Change” program within the “WIR! – Change through Innovation in the Region” program line and is part of the “com(m) 2020 – Municipal Innovations for Healthcare in Rural Areas” alliance. 

The cooperation partners are the University of Cologne (UzK) and the “Soziales Netzwerk Lausitz gGmbH” (SNL). The collaborative project is titled “INSOLA—Integrated Social Space Formation and Sustainable Social Space Development in Lusatia.”

The INSOLA consortium is coordinated by: Manuela Thomas, SNL (leadership and strategic fieldwork) & Dr. Philipp Thimm, SNL (conceptual and reflective work on processes and results; communication liaison with the University of Cologne). 

The UzK’s subproject is titled “Social Space Development for Rural Regions: Identification, Development, Implementation, Monitoring, and Transfer of Social Space Concepts” (FKZ: 03WIR6511B). The project director at the UzK is Univ.-Prof. (em.) Dr. Frank Schulz-Nieswandt, UzK. The UzK project team consists of Julia Beideck, M.Sc., Dr. Johannes Blome-Drees, Dr. Simon Micken, and Dr. Joschka Moldenhauer. The project duration is from August 1, 2025, to July 31, 2028.

The UzK’s total funding amounts to €674,995.52. The SNL’s funding amount is 128,860 €. The contact

person at the UzK is Dr. Joschka Moldenhauer (jmoldenh(at)uni-koeln(dot)de).

The Project Team

A collaboration between