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11/07/2023 | Pressemitteilung

University opens laboratory for sustainability issues - public festival

The University of Kassel is opening a new location in Kassel's city center with a four-day festival starting on November 15. The UNI:Lokal, a converted store, is an open event venue and meeting point for the urban community. It also serves as the university's sustainability laboratory, the so-called SDG+ Lab. At the opening, interested parties can talk to top-class academics, but also with documenta Managing Director Andreas Hoffmann, for example. Lord Mayor Sven Schöller speaks at the opening.

Image: Anja Koehne.
Insight into the Uni:Lokal shortly before the opening.

With the SDG+ Lab, the university aims to promote the sustainable development of the city and region and involve interested citizens in the form of workshops and other participation formats. Its name refers to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. With the Kassel Institute for Sustainability, the University of North Hesse has just founded a scientific center that researches and teaches in line with these goals.

"The program will be an ideal complement to the Kassel Institute for Sustainability. We want to break new ground here in order to interlink social developments with science and relate them to each other," says University President Prof. Dr. Ute Clement about the SDG+ Lab and emphasizes the importance of the new UNI:Lokal. "With the UNI:Lokal, there will be a very short route to events and offers at the University of Kassel in the future - science is moving into the center of the city." The SDG+ Lab will be the first major project at this new location.

Four themed years are planned, each led by a professorship at the University of Kassel. During the themed years, the SDG+ Lab will be the public "window" to a wide variety of activities and experiments - a kind of transparent laboratory for social change, new innovations, but also controversial discussions on issues such as climate protection, alternative energies, the circular economy, social inequality and sustainable urban development. The topic of culture as a driver of social change will also play a major role.

"Today, complex social issues can no longer be answered by one discipline or institution alone. We therefore want to create a lively place between science and society where we can tackle specific sustainability issues and challenges for the region - with regional partners from business, culture, civil society and public administration. Together, we want to develop and implement proposed solutions and innovations for a socio-ecological transformation in North Hesse," explains Daniel Opper, Head of UniKasselTransfer, who acquired the project for the University of Kassel as part of the federal-state initiative "Innovative University".

The first theme year 2023 / 2024 will focus on challenges and transformations in the field of energy and the environment: temporary district stores will be set up in up to five districts of Kassel, where intensive cooperation with local citizens will take place and district-specific topics relating to energy and the environment will be discussed. Possible events in and around the district stores include energy consultations, district walks, DIY workshops, climate round tables, expert discussions and participation formats for children. The social partners for this sub-project are committed people in the districts and the Kassel association SoLocalEnergy e.V.. In addition, anyone can get involved in the SDG+ Challenge. This starts on 17.11. with a two-day workshop. In advance, 13 challenges were collected, which will be worked on by transdisciplinary teams in the coming months according to the open innovation principle. Anyone interested can join these teams and contribute to the establishment of a Tiny Forest (urban mini-forest), for example.

The aim of the SDG+ Lab is to accelerate the exchange of transformation knowledge from research and practice and to develop new ways of doing this. "The close cooperation with different partners and disciplines also requires completely new methodological formats. In this respect, too, the SDG+ Lab is designed as a large laboratory of ideas," says Katharina Leinius, who has been the operational Project Leader at UniKasselTransfer since the beginning of the year.

From 15 - 18 November, the SDG+ Lab will open in the UNI:Lokal at Wilhelmsstraße 21, 34117 Kassel with an extensive festival program. The university cordially invites all interested and curious people to attend. The complete festival program can be found here.

Visitors can experience lectures, workshops, the launch of the SDG+ Challenge and the inaugural exhibition on the future activities of the SDG+ Lab.

Even after the opening, the SDG+ Lab invites you to linger in the new UNI:Lokal with various formats, such as "SDG+ Lab MEETS Bürgeruni". The exhibition is also open to the public on Thursdays and Fridays from 12pm to 7pm and Saturdays from 10am to 2pm.