Local Landscape Systems Labs: Empowering Systems Thinking for Transformative Change and Territorial Regeneration

LoLa will enhance the competence for systems thinking in the context of community-led landscape development in urban, peri-urban and rural contexts. Systems thinking provides a valuable framework ...

LoLa will enhance the competence for systems thinking in the context of community-led landscape development in urban, peri-urban and rural contexts. Systems thinking provides a valuable framework for understanding and addressing the complex, interconnected challenges of sustainable development, ultimately building the capacity of individuals, organizations, and societies to create a more sustainable future. Higher education institutions must play a key role in activating this capacity

We develop 7 Local Landscape Systems Labs at the interface of the universities and their community context: Nürtingen and Beirut focus on the local food system, Valencia on water, Brussels on the mobility system, Gdansk on the coastal landscape system, Antalya on the rural landscape system and Rome on the energy and housing system. All labs are connected through a cross-cutting participatory action research process aiming at proving the effectiveness of our learning approach to systems thinking.

All LoLa Labs will be sustained beyond this project. We will publish a handbook for educators on systems thinking education to be applied mostly in spatial planning and design, social innovation, rural and urban development. Another result is the actual systems thinking competence development among all participants involved in our participatory action research cycle. LoLa contributes to local democracy through new formats of participation and empowerment for the Grand Transformation.