ECO-WISE::DELPHI

Mainstraming ECO-WISE as regional sustainable actors

• Intern project
• Regional research
• Periode: till 2015
• Method: Delphi Technique with group discussions, expert-interviews and a grounded theory based data analysis

Description
Previous research activities indicate that ECO-WISE are important partners in handling current societal problems, like joblessness, ecological exploitation and socioeconomic exclusion (see ECO-WISE::Austria and ÖKO::STEBP). Thereby they turned out to be prototypical actors in realising sustainable development and therefore they can be seen as vehicle for social, economic and ecological innovation especially on regional level. As to how they reside in the intermediary field between market, state and community needs, their development and performance is influenced by the dynamics in these sectors to a high degree, which determines the unfolding of their strengths as sustainable actors. In order to mainstream ECO-WISE as sustainable actors, especially in crisis-ridden times, concrete decisions and future strategies are needed. To develop them, an opinion-forming public sphere in the region of Styria is created using the Delphi-technique as a participatory research tool. Herein all important stakeholders in and outside of ECO-WISE are involved, such as exponents of the local government, the commercial market sector, the labour market policy, the organisational field of ECO-WISE, interest groups etc. The goal is to clarify the understanding of ECO-WISE out of several perspectives and to generate opinions on how the role of these organisations as sustainable actors can be improved. The data will be analysed with a grounded theory based method in order to develop a typology on possible strategies alongside the different perspectives the representatives have provided. The final step will be an evaluation of this typology by the experts alongside the criteria importance, chances of realisation, and degree of innovation, etc.

Report ECO-WISE::DELPHI (work in progress)