Development of an indicator system for measuring regional socio-ecological transformation / RegTransform

Over the last decade, a variety of alternative measurement concepts have emerged to capture social and economic development. They differ from the conventional welfare and economic indicators and their focus on the gross domestic product as an indicator of national or regional prosperity and refer to sustainable development, social innovation, equal living conditions, quality of life or societal innovation potentials.

These alternative measurement concepts address the national level and have so far been developed separately from each other, which seems plausible from a development oriented, analytical view of basic research. In light of the systemic character of regional socio-ecological transformation processes, however, such a separation is not appropriate and difficult to implement.

Against this background, the aim of the project is to develop an indicator system for measuring regional socio-ecological transformation that combines the diverse sets of indicators described above. The aim is to enable regional actors to assess the current regional status with regard to the socio-ecological transformation.

Following Schneidewind (2018), we understand transformation processes as the restructuring of technology, economy and society in order to deal with the social and ecological challenges of the 21st century. The regional level with its social and economic interdependencies remains of particular importance. For example, indicator sets such as the EU's "Regional Innovation Scoreboard" are an important reference in current calls for proposals of the Horizon Europe programme. In the future, too, regions remain a central spatial unit for socio-ecological transformation with regard to an increasingly mission-oriented funding policy of the EU, e.g. for the EU mission "Climate Change Adaptation and Societal Transformation".