The Forum for Political and Social Reforms

A substantial amount of knowledge regarding political and social reform has been accumulated by various actors from within distinct academic disciplines. Now the task at hand is to combine and productively enhance the existing expertise of distinct groups, such as scientists, ministries, NGOs, businesses, policy experts and members of public administrations. In order to meet this goal, we need to foster alternative forms of dialogue and build new alliances between governments, the private sector and civil society. But what does this collaboration then mean?

The HUMBOLDT-VIADRINA School provides a platform where governments, the private sector and civil society can exchange information, aggregate knowledge and develop new approaches to reform. Distinct actors discuss specific challenges and create new solutions together, combining various viewpoints and perspectives. At the same time, new forms of dialogue and innovative techniques for reform allow for a process of mutual learning. The HUMBOLDT-VIADRINA acts as a catalyst for reform, effecting change in social structures and cooperatively shaping and implementing political projects.

An example: With capital procurement costs amounting up to 50% of invested funding, the financing of the non-profit sector is desperately in need of more efficient structures. For three and a half years, experts and actors from the private sector and civil society have come together in forums run by the HUMBOLDT-VIADRINA, in order to develop solutions to this problem. A noticeable achievement of this work is the founding of the internet platform ‘betterplace.org,’ which resulted from one of HUMBOLDT-VIADRINA’s solution-finding processes. Since November 2007, this platform for communication on worldwide social projects has helped to contribute to the creation of effective and long-term funding of non-profit social activities.