Institute Work and Technology
The Institute for Work and Technology ( IAT ) is an application-oriented research institute at the Westphalian University of Applied Sciences, located in the Gelsenkirchen Science Park in Gelsenkirchen-Ückendorf .
Origin and history
The IAT was founded in 1988 as part of the NRW Science Center. The Gelsenkirchen institute was one of three state institutes alongside the Essen Institute for Cultural Studies and the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy . In 2006 the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia decided to institutionally connect these state institutes with universities in the state. The IAT has been a central scientific institution of the Westfälische Hochschule Gelsenkirchen Bocholt Recklinghausen in cooperation with the Ruhr University Bochum since January 1st, 2007.
Scientific profile
The institute sees itself as a research and development facility whose scientific and practical interest is in the organization of knowledge and innovation for sustainable prosperity and quality of life. The IAT is not only active in basic research, but also in applied research. The IAT focuses on the development, management and diffusion of innovative and sustainable solutions.
It is divided into four main research areas:
The research focus Work & Change deals with the change in work and change through work. A special focus is on personal social service work. The research and development projects aim at strategies, methods and instruments for the upgrading of social service work, at concepts for a prevention-oriented and competence-promoting work design as well as at new ways of the labor market integration in the social service professions.
The research focus Health Economy & Quality of Life deals with the topics of monitoring trends and innovations in the health economy, designing system solutions for improved prevention, healing and care, health regions, aging, demographic change and its effects on the economy and society. The aim is to improve the health industry's prospects for better quality of life, good work and sustainable competitiveness and to overcome innovation barriers.
Embedded in the leitmotif "Rethinking innovation" is an understanding of innovation, which asks about the contribution of innovations to overcoming societal challenges, a focus of the work in the research area Innovation, Space & Culture . This goes hand in hand with research into new forms of innovation and the development of supporting instruments and strategies for promoting innovation, as well as research into the related sectoral and regional change. Topics are u. a. Innovation ecosystems, measurement of (social) innovations, value creation networks, participatory governance, actors and knowledge dynamics.
The aim of the research focus on spatial capital is to make a contribution to the sustainable development of spaces and the creation of equal living conditions through research, development and support. Spatial capital refers to the endogenous potential of regions and particularly takes into account the opportunities that arise in demographically and economically shrinking areas. Research topics are the areas of space and finance, structural policy, urban renewal and urban production as well as civil society and alternative economies.
The four main research areas are supplemented by study groups in which the institute's scientists work together with members of the Ruhr University Bochum and the Westphalian University of Gelsenkirchen Bocholt Recklinghausen. In 2019 the study groups Life Long Learning, CultNature and Industrial Policy exist.
Projects
The institute is primarily active in the field of scientific policy and business advice. The research results of the IAT are repeatedly the subject of press reports in connection with current political discussions. In addition to regional projects that deal with the situation in the Ruhr area, international cooperation projects are also processed, often with EU funding.
The projects that are currently running or have been worked on since 2007 were dedicated to the following topics: Aging society, work and qualification, clusters and networks, e-health, e-learning, health regions, household health as a location, digitization, innovation biographies, innovative spaces, internationalization in the health economy, migration and integration, social, technical and organizational innovations, social partnership relationships, structural policy, structural change, trend and innovation monitoring, care design and structures, value chains
Web links
- Homepage of the IAT
- Future in social innovation research
- Significantly more takeovers
- Transformation - Dangerous promise to the coal mining areas
- Co-determined HR work for hospitals in times of digital change - BMAS funds "DigiKIK"
Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ′ 59.6 ″ N , 7 ° 6 ′ 28.4 ″ E