Knowledge Dialogue Northern Black Forest: The real-world laboratory

The establishment of the Black Forest National Park on 1 January 2014 was a significant event for the entire region. But how can the opportunities that the National Park offers for the sustainable development of the whole region be exploited? And what can we learn from the ecological processes taking place in the National Park area? These are the two core questions of the real laboratory "Knowledge Dialogue Northern Black Forest" (WiNo). The project was supported by an interdisciplinary team from the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, the Rottenburg University of Applied Forest Sciences, the Öko-Institut e.V., the Forest Research Institute Baden-Württemberg and EVOCO GmbH. The administrations of the Black Forest National Park and the Black Forest Middle-North Nature Park participated as practice partners. As the only one of the 14 real-life laboratories funded by the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and Culture to date, WiNo did not operate in an urban context but was dedicated to rural areas. Six topic areas were identified as particularly important in the run-up to the project through the survey of local actors and were the starting point for the three-phase project: 1) The core of phase 1 (January to August 2015) was the event "Knowledge Dialogue Northern Black Forest: Questions, Discussion, Research", during which the research partners presented their competences and concretised possible research questions within the topic areas with local actors and the population in the Northern Black Forest. Following the co-design approach, the precise research programme was only elaborated following this knowledge dialogue. 2) In phase 2 (August 2015 to April 2017) the sub-projects developed in co-design were scientifically processed. The range of topics of the approved subprojects was broad: Sustainable digital mobility concepts and innovative products of health tourism, the historical development of the cultural landscape, the spread of bark beetles and the dynamics of natural forest development were on the agenda, as were instruments for path planning in the national park, the perception of wild animals by residents and visitors to the region and the local knowledge of the population about the national park. Under the heading of co-production of knowledge, the focus here too was on cooperation between science and practice. Additional financial instruments were available to promote this: A science-practice tandem programme enabled scientists and practitioners to get to know each other's work; mobility grants allowed scientists and actors from the region to exchange experiences with other national parks at home and abroad; students worked on project topics on site in research-based teaching and learning projects. 3) In phase 3 (May to December 2017) the results were presented and solutions to problems were developed. The focus of this phase was an event in the project area, which served to synthesise the scientific results and was intended to provide impetus for reflection and to initiate local projects emerging from the real laboratory.