The KAT - An Institution of Change
The Karlsruhe Transformation Center for Sustainability and Cultural Change (KAT) is a research, education and development facility at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). With its seven fields of action, it supports and promotes social change towards cultures of sustainability. The team is driven by the conviction that an eco-socio-technical transformation towards sustainable lifestyles and a sustainable world can only succeed together. In this context, overarching cooperations between science, politics, administration, business and committed citizens form an important starting point. They challenge, inspire and enable something new.
The KAT positions itself at the interface between science and society. It operates the real-world lab Quartier Zukunft - Labor Stadt as well as other research and transformation projects. In addition to research and education it also offers consulting services and process support. The KAT builds on the experience, competencies and structures of about ten years, multiple award-winning real-world lab practice and many previous projects, such as:
- KARLA: Karlsruhe Reallabor for Sustainable Climate Protection
- Karlsruhe School of Sustainability
The vision
The KAT strives for a world in which cultures of sustainability based on inter- and intragenerational justice, common good orientation, environmental friendliness, communality, tolerance, resonance, connectedness and peacefulness are the norm. It develops inter- and transdisciplinary action and orientation knowledge for the "Great Transformation" (WBGU 2011) and at the same time provides concrete, practical contributions for this. Spaces for experimentation and reflection make it possible to experimentally open up ways out of non-sustainable ways of life and economic structures in order to learn sustainability.
With the Karlsruhe Transformation Center for Sustainability and Cultural Change, one of the world's first real-world labs, the District Future Zukunft - Urban Lab is institutionalized and made permanent. Areas such as education, consulting and contemplation expand the research aspect of a real-world lab to be able to synergetically accompany processes of change in the long term. Sustainable development can thus be perceived and organized as a permanent and essential joint task of all social sectors. The KAT sees itself as non-partisan, inclusive, non-violent, integral and committed to a free democratic basic order and human rights. It creates places of sustainability and is an authentic role model and pioneer of a culture of sustainability in its working methods and self-image.
As an institution of change the KAT shows how sustainability can already be lived in a way that is positive to life and the future. It sets impulses and carries these impulses to other places. In this way, the KAT is both a contact point and a home and partner for all those who really want to take the path to a sustainable future.
