The pilot project SInBa focuses on the role of social innovations in the implementation of climate and sustainability goals in the fields of construction, housing and urban development. In cooperation with inter3 and the cities of Wuppertal and Mannheim, the Wuppertal Institute identifies concrete social innovations – for example in planning and design, during the construction process, in administrative actions or in the use of buildings. Based on concrete problems of the practice partners, the project participants develop corresponding experiments and accompany them on their way out of the niche into the mainstream by developing new standards, processes and instruments.
To this end, the researchers research new solutions for cities in the climate crisis – both internationally and in the two project cities of Wuppertal and Mannheim – and investigate their potential for sustainable urban development. Subsequently, the two cities implement several innovations in real laboratories, which are accompanied by the methods of innovation management on the part of the research team. These can be, for example, social innovations such as new forms of housing, a proactive municipal land policy or cooperative structures of collaboration across different administrative units. The goal is to develop tools and methods for municipal actors that are also available to other cities.