The book on the first "Austrian Transformation Forum" (5–6 March 2024, University for Continuing Education Krems) has now been published. The printed version is available to all interested parties through bookshops and directly from the publisher University of Krems Press.
The digital version of the book is available free of charge on the Austrian Transformation Forum's website: https://www.donau-uni.ac.at/transformationsforum
From 5 to 6 March 2024, the "Austrian Transformation Forum. Civil Society Cooperation for Socio-Ecological Change" took place for the first time at the University for Continuing Education Krems. The event was organised by the university's Platform for Sustainable Development (SDGs). The conference was attended by 120 people, as delegates from a total of 75 civil society organisations and social movements from various sectors: climate and environmental movements, academia, interest groups, welfare associations, aid organisations, youth and human rights organisations, business, religious communities, and culture. With the "Austrian Transformation Forum", the University for Continuing Education Krems creates a non-partisan, transdisciplinary space for discourse on socio-ecological transformation. Rather than closing itself off in a self-referential manner as an academic community, the university opens up an "ethical space for dialogue".
The goal: to give the transformative shift towards future viability the most effective possible impetus from civil society. The university thus acts as an active change agent. How does this work? The "Transformation Forum" supports substantive exchange, structured cooperation, and strategic coordination between civil society actors. In this way, civil society in Austria responds at the local level to the planetary crisis and to the epochal necessity of a socio-ecological transition into the ecological age. Due to its special profile as a continuing education university with many working professionals from various disciplines among its students, transdisciplinarity is part of the genetic make-up of the University for Continuing Education Krems. At their best, courses form creative learning communities between academic experts and students with a wealth of life experience, practical experience, and professional expertise.
The young public university, opened in 1995, is in dialogue with various professional fields and communities. This makes it easier for it to respond flexibly and quickly to current societal developments and to exert an influence on them. It is therefore no coincidence that the "Austrian Transformation Forum" project emerged in precisely this special university setting.
We are confident that the newly founded "Austrian Transformation Forum" can make a constructive contribution to a strong, resilient, liberal, and deliberative democracy and a future-ready, open society — in the spirit of Karl Popper.
