Current projects
sustainability of mobility
As part of the Smart Rail Connectivity Campus (SRCC) in the Erzgebirge district, the joint project "Sustainable Mobility (NaMo)" examines the users who are at the center of mobility and their needs and attitudes in order to support the successful design of mobility innovations and their integration into existing social structures.
To this end, the focus of the investigation is placed on users and other demand-inducing stakeholders in order to ascertain the underlying causes of mobility, i.e. needs, and thus to answer the question of why people want or need to be mobile in a specific case. The mobility needs and the mutually related attitudes towards mobility ultimately justify the mobility behavior. The latter decides on the use of mobility offers and thus also on the success or failure of new mobility concepts on the market.
From February 2022 to January 2025, the mobility-related needs and attitudes of users in the Erzgebirge district, as well as their behavior, will be analyzed on the basis of comprehensive empirical analyzes and practical deductions will be made from these findings. This increases the sustainability of current and future mobility projects and closes a significant research gap in the field of mobility innovation.
Embedding and goal of the project
"NaMo" is embedded in the SRCC as a joint project of Chemnitz University of Technology , which is part of the "WIR! – Change through innovation in the region” is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
WIR! supports projects that are intended to initiate sustainable structural change through the formation of regional innovation alliances made up of research institutions, companies and civil society actors in structurally weak regions.
In this context, the aim of the SRCC as a neutral institutional and infrastructural platform in the Erzgebirge district is to initiate and promote innovations in the field of digital networking and communication in rail transport, which above all gradually network automated driving on the rails and the integration of rail transport in multimodal Enable mobility offers. This is intended to promote and enable sustainable mobility in the region and to make a contribution to the economic success of the companies involved.
The goals of "NaMo" are therefore the development of a methodology for the design of needs-based and sustainable mobility approaches and the derivation of concrete design recommendations for sustainable mobility in the economic and tourist region of the Ore Mountains.
Contact Person
Richard Holzerland
JenErgieReal
"Real laboratories of the energy transition" - energy-optimized quarters
Project duration: 01/01/2022 – 12/31/2026
short description
The research and transfer project JenErgieReal sees itself as a blueprint for the future holistic supply of electrical and thermal energy and the integration of mobility as a link.
The main drivers of energy consumption in transport, industry, commerce and housing are considered across sectors and the implementation is scientifically accompanied in an exemplary large-scale project.
The overall goal of JenErgieReal is the demonstration of sector coupling through innovative power plant structures for the realization of an affordable energy transition. The central topics of the JenErgieReal project focus on grid utility and aim at grid stabilization without grid expansion. Measures that make this possible include load peak smoothing, load control, also from the upstream network, and reduced feed-in.
In the various work topics, solutions for future quarters from the end consumer to the producer are developed and implemented. Regulatory learning plays an important role in this.
The results will be demonstrated as a real laboratory in the city of Jena.
subproject at the chair
Duration: 07/2023-04/2024
Support for the project partners at the Zwickau University of Applied Sciences and the Ernst Abbe University Jena in the planning, conception and organization of the empirical surveys, the theory-based evaluation and the preparation of the results for publication in scientific specialist literature.
contact person
project partner
- City administration of Jena
- Stadtwerke Jena Netze GmbH
- Stadtwerke Energie Jena Pößneck GmbH
- jenawohnen GmbH
- AWO Regionalverband Mitte-West-Thüringen e.V.
- Metrona Union GmbH
- Westsächsische Hochschule Zwickau
- Ernst-Abbe-Hochschule Jena
- TU Chemnitz
ReFoSocI - Regional focus groups for social innovations in Saxony
Social innovations are innovations that address social challenges and in a process new social practices for a specific group of society are thought up, tried out, evaluated and finally anchored. Social innovations often have a regional connection and are embedded in the existing political, cultural and economic system, which can influence and thus promote, slow down or prevent the development of social innovations.
Therefore, in this project we follow a systemic approach, as this can focus on the complexity of social needs in a structured manner. This means that citizens in Saxony, employees from all fields of social work as well as experts from science, business, politics and civil society can be integrated into the analysis. We use a multi-method approach to develop the regionally different social challenges in Saxony. Both quantitative and qualitative methods as well as primary and secondary data sources are used. Depending on the initial situation, these will be used in a targeted and situational manner.
Project partners
Project duration
October 15, 2023 - January 31, 2024
contact person
