The "Future Center for German Unity and European Transformation" is to be established in an eastern German city by 2028. For this purpose, the German federal government has launched a site competition and is providing up to 200 million euros of funding. The city of Halle is taking part in the competition. In order to strengthen and increase the visibility of the cooperation for the application of the city and the region, a partner network was established on the Day of German Unity on October 3, 2022, with more than 120 members from science, civil society, art and culture, as well as business and politics. Together, the members would like to become a hub for the exploration of social transformation and a driver of joint perspectives on the future and the shaping of democratic societies in Europe.
The Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO) is also an official member of the partner network and strengthens with its scientific expertise on transformation processes the location Halle as a center of science, which has been working on the topic of transformation for a long time intensively, interdisciplinary, including regional knowledge potentials and in Europe-wide cooperations.
As part of the application process, IAMO was already involved in the conception before the network was founded. The institute organized events to initiate discussions with the local community. IAMO Director Thomas Herzfeld represented IAMO at a panel discussion on the Future Center at the Leopoldina on September 8. All participants agreed that Halle offers optimal conditions for the location of the Future Center. IAMO Director Alfons Balmann gave a presentation on upcoming transformation processes in agriculture at the Stadtmuseum Halle on September 21. The following discussion highlighted the particular challenges of current and long-term developments in agriculture.
