@incollection{DominguezLacasaMietzner2026, author = {Dominguez Lacasa, Iciar and Mietzner, Dana}, title = {How to Engage with Local Communities for Regional Development in Rural Areas? Participatory Formats in Outreach Hubs}, series = {Collaborative Workspaces Beyond the Urban: Economy, Community and Regional Development}, booktitle = {Collaborative Workspaces Beyond the Urban: Economy, Community and Regional Development}, publisher = {Springer Nature Singapore}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:526-opus4-21306}, publisher = {Technische Hochschule Wildau}, pages = {275 -- 299}, year = {2026}, abstract = {In transformation and economic development processes, universities have a responsible role alongside research and teaching in the context of their "third mission." This concept has expanded to focus more on social engagement, social innovation, and the involvement of civil society as a key driver of research and transfer. New approaches and instruments are needed to address this challenge. Collaborative workspaces (CWS) are suitable for implementing participatory formats with civil society due to their open design and corresponding formats. This study examines how participatory formats can be implemented in a university-based outreach hub—a type of CWS—in a rural area and how civil society involvement can be facilitated. Four different participatory formats implemented in the outreach hub are presented: open lab days in the makerspace, citizens' perspective on their town, citizen science, and participatory scenario analyses. The study discusses the special role of the outreach hub, which allows universities to engage directly with local communities and address their needs. The outreach hub acts as a crystallization point, shaping new relationships and forms of cooperation.}, language = {en} } @incollection{MietznerVandenhoutenHartmann2015, author = {Mietzner, Dana and Vandenhouten, Ralf and Hartmann, Frank}, title = {Collaborative Problem Solving for Regional Development? - A New Approach of Public Participation}, series = {Electronic Government and Electronic Participation}, booktitle = {Electronic Government and Electronic Participation}, editor = {Tambouris, Efthimios}, publisher = {IOS Press}, address = {Amsterdam}, isbn = {978-1-61499-570-8}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:526-opus4-9177}, publisher = {Technische Hochschule Wildau}, pages = {19 -- 26}, year = {2015}, abstract = {In this paper, we present a concept prototype for a socio-technical assistant (s.TAS) as a collaborative problem-solving approach to support the regional development in a selected rural district. The presented concept considers insides from citizen participation as an open government instrument and strongly incorporates collaborative value creation to address regional development issues. The presented approach incorporates citizens and other regional stakeholders (e.g., companies, organizations, associations) as problem-solvers and strongly enables regional stakeholders and the public administration to develop solutions jointly as an ongoing learning process. In this sense, s.TAS addresses participation approaches and elaborates participation to collaboration. For the development of this participatory problem-solving approach, we conducted (1) a broad literature review on participatory approaches and (2) we implemented a qualitative, collaborative research approach with participants from different stakeholder groups. In several workshop rounds, supported by interviews and surveys we developed a concept prototype for the socio-technical assistant s.TAS, which is a technical, smart system, which supports information, communication, participation and collaboration in the selected region.}, language = {en} }