Our fields of action

Action and Innovation	Consultancy	Education	Experimentation
Research	Reflection and contemplation	Communication and Networking

Action and innovation

KAT initiates change, develops and tests social, technical and economic contributions to sustainable development in all areas of life.

Together with social actors, the Karlsruhe Transformation Center for Sustainability and Cultural Change explores the question of what sustainable development looks like in practice. People, communities and organizations that are embarking on the path to a more sustainable future are scientifically accompanied and supported. New ideas that promote a sustainable lifestyle are welcome and encouraged. For example, the development of new technologies, modern forms of economic activity in the interests of the common good or alternative structures for living together. Conventional, unsustainable routines are to be replaced by new patterns of action - in the spirit of a culture of sustainability.

Consulting

With its expertise and real-world laboratory experience, KAT advises organizations, municipalities, companies and initiatives on their transition to sustainability.

The Karlsruhe Transformation Centre for Sustainability and Cultural Change advises and supports organizations and initiatives on their path to more sustainable action. Municipalities, companies and civil society pioneers who want to make themselves fit for a sustainable future are supported by KAT and accompanied in their transformation processes and daily work. Special attention is paid to experimental approaches, cooperative projects and real-world laboratories. With in-depth sustainability knowledge and experience in designing complex processes, KAT is a reliable partner for the future. In addition to various universities, companies and NGOs, KAT has already advised cities such as Freiburg, Karlsruhe and Braunschweig in their efforts to become more sustainable.

Education

In cooperation with renowned players, KAT offers individual educational programs in the field of sustainable development for universities, schools and the general public.

Sustainability transformations need education: to recognize necessary changes, to formulate goals appropriately, to take feasible paths and to reflect on processes. Above all, however, it is important that people are able to develop their own potential. Transformation skills, systemic thinking and personal sustainability go hand in hand here. The Karlsruhe Transformation Center offers a wide range of educational opportunities. Together with the Center for Applied Cultural Studies and Studium Generale (ZAK) and the Karlsruhe School of Sustainability, the accompanying study program Sustainable Development was launched at KIT, transformative project seminars are continuously offered and the annual Spring Days of Sustainability are co-organized. In addition to a wide range of information events, the KAT also offers educational programs for schools, training companies, real-world laboratories and companies.

Experimental space

KAT opens up, develops and maintains experimental spaces, thus creating ideal conditions for change.

If you want to change the world, you need protected spaces to tinker and try things out. Change needs physical space: real spaces where new things can and may be tried out. But also in regulatory terms: new things can only ever be realized to the extent that the regulatory framework allows. This is where we need to get creative and open up spaces for experimentation so that innovations can emerge in the first place. And ultimately, it is also about creating space in thinking, giving room to new ideas, out of the box. The Karlsruhe Transformation Center creates such spaces, gladly together with you. One very practical example is the Future Space for Sustainability and Science in Karlsruhe's Oststadt district. Not everything is possible there either, but a lot is.

Research

KAT conducts sustainability, transformation and transformative research. It conducts long-term research into change processes and the conditions for a successful transformation and links knowledge to basic research.

Sustainability change needs knowledge and research. The Karlsruhe Transformation Centre creates orientation knowledge, system knowledge and action knowledge around the questions: What does it take to promote sustainable development in the various areas of life, sectors and organizations of our society? How can we shape change together and overcome the corresponding obstacles? The predominant type of research here is real-world laboratory research or transdisciplinary and transformative sustainability research. The scientists at KAT are themselves involved in change processes. In this way, they gain insights that cannot be generated from a purely external perspective. KAT is a university facility at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) at KIT, where it utilizes both decades of experience in sustainability research and the unique, interdisciplinary research environment. Here you will find an overview of all research and real-world laboratory projects based at KAT.

Reflection and contemplation

In a restless and increasingly fast-paced world, KAT offers spaces for reflection and retreat, making it a refuge of change for deceleration, resonance and self-reflection.

Doing nothing... would be the greatest change. In a restless and increasingly fast-paced world, the Karlsruhe Transformation Center also serves as a refuge. It's worth taking a step back, coming to stillness, to yourself. Because change requires leisure and self-reflection. KAT's previous offerings, such as seminars on "personal sustainability", contemplation practices and methods for reflection and self-reflection as part of the real-world laboratory work, are currently being developed further and will be made available to a wider circle as soon as possible. As urgent and important as profound change is, it will not take place without pausing, self-awareness, centeredness ("meditation") and (inner) relationship work.

Understanding and networking

KAT supports the networking of a wide variety of players, such as technical and social pioneers of change. The prerequisite for this is communication and the resulting mutual understanding.

Sustainable development can only succeed if society as a whole works together. The Karlsruhe Transformation Center contributes to this by engaging in target group-specific communication, interaction, participation and moderation as well as mediation in the event of conflict. On the path to sustainability, it is important to overcome particular interests, counter polarizing tendencies, bring together different world views, values and thought patterns and develop shared visions. A further step is to build trust, form networks and develop intermediary structures and, ideally, stable cooperation.