Description
Increasing numbers of immigrant and refugees arriving in Europe pose severe challenges on our societies. In Germany, around 1 mio. asylum applications have been submitted in the last two years (cf. bpb, 2017). Even though hopeless political circumstances and persecution are often the reasons forcing people to leave their homes, the challenge of integrating asylum seekers into our society will not be solved with politics alone. We can only master that task if we combine resources, share knowledge and experiences and if we create platforms for a collaborative development of innovative, bold and unconventional ideas. It is only if we manage to create spaces for such constructive exchange, that we can turn this crisis into a chance for social, economic and cultural growth
The Hans Sauer Foundation wants to encourage such collaborative processes by prototyping a social lab for integration in Munich, where solutions for challenges like the integration of refugees can be explored and developed. Over the past years, labs and lab-like structures, which tackle various social and societal issues have developed in many European countries.
- Labs are regarded as a promising way to address challenges and questions of the future which cannot (or can no longer) be solved within conventional structures and organisations.
- Labs make use of a plethora of tools and methods to stimulate creativity, enable dialogue, cooperation and participation.
- Labs dissolve disciplinary and sectoral boundaries and are replaced by participatory, interdisciplinary and experimental forms of working and creating.
- Various players have discovered labs for the development of new solutions: companies, universities, state institutions, and, increasingly, social and non-profit initiatives and organisations.