(Re)designing the Regions

This week, the French social innovation agency La 27ème Région is on a study trip to the Öresund Region and MEDEA to meet with researchers and innovators in the area. The purpose of this trip is the following:

“Can we imagine another kind of regional development, more sustainable and more driven by the populations? In many places in the world, public bodies and local governments work together with the civil society, exploring different methods, inspired by design thinking, social innovation and creativity. These approaches represent new co-conception models for public policies, and the possibility for a more reasoned development of urban and rural places, in scope to a territorial ecology. This workshop gathers a huge diversity of organisations, and people with heterogeneous profiles from all Europe: they are social innovators, designers, researchers, politicians and civil servants. They share the same values and practices, and they wish to compare their approaches and improve it together. The program will include presentations, visits and workshops.”

The tour will take them to the suburbs of Malmö, starting in Augustenborg and ending in Rosengård. It will also take them to Copenhagen and a visit to MindLab and meeting with the Kaospilots that are starting the Copenhagen Social Innovation Lab. Researchers from MEDEA will also present the Living Labs (full schedule is available here).

The distinguished international speakers are, among others, Ezio Manzini (Italy, Politecnico di Milano), Louise Pulford (UK, Young Foundation), Stéphane Vincent (France, La 27ème Région), Francois Jégou (Belgium, Sustainable Design Solutions) and Jon Kolko (USA, Frog Design and MEDEA’s entrepreneur-in-residence).