The City of Dortmund organized it’s first Science Night for bringing together the world of academia and local people and dive into some current research on 27 September 2024. ReROOT site researcher Cornelia Tippel contributed an excursion to ReROOT site Dortmund-Nordstadt to the program of the Science Night.
Even though the weather didn’t quite cooperate, around 30 participants armed with umbrellas ventured the bus tour to Nordstadt. The first stop was Nordmarkt, where Sebastian Kurtenbach, sociologist at university of applied sciences Münster, introduced participants to the history of the arrival neighbourhood, its general characteristics and unique vibe.
Photo copyright Carsten Nawrath/ILS.
After the introduction, we split into two groups: one with Sebastian to dive deeper into local housing labour and information markets in the neighbourhood and the other with Cornelia and Sofie Eichner, a social planner at the Dortmund city council, to learn more about arrival infrastructures and Dortmund’s policies of arrival.
Cornelia and Sofie guided participants to public, social, civil society, commercial, digital and place-based arrival infrastructures in the neighbourhood and pointed to their dynamics. They also showed the arrival path of a newcomer combining different arrival infrastructures, navigating the system and finding their footing in the new environment.
Photo copyright Carsten Nawrath/ILS.
After the separate walks, contributors and participants convened in the local contact point for EU arrivals Willkommen Europa to warm themselves up. The team from Willkommen Europa provided an insight into their work supporting people arriving from EU countries. Participants also exchanged their impressions and fresh perspectives from the walks.
Finally, the bus and the patient bus driver who circled around the block four times until all chats were wrapped up safely brought the group back to the centre of Dortmund, all filled with new insights and sometimes a changed view on the neighbourhood.
About the Science Night
The first ‘Science Night - The Dortmund Night of Science’ took place on Friday, 27 September, 2024. Visitors were offered a diverse programme at Dortmunder U and selected locations in the city.
The Science Night invited visitors to discover some of the many facets of academia in Dortmund. Around 40 partner institutions jointly organised the programme: from A for Academy for Theatre and Digitality to Z for Zoo! Dortmund's universities and scientific institutes as well as many other educational partners such as the VHS (adult education centre) offer lectures, hands-on activities, excursions and workshops into the night.
"Arriving and staying in Dortmund – social research perspectives on Nordstadt and Hörde" Dortmund is growing – particularly due to people moving in from abroad. In particular, so-called ‘arrival neighbourhoods’ are changing dynamically as a result. A variety of research projects and disciplines deals with arriving and staying in these neighbourhoods, often focusing on Dortmund, in particular at Nordstadt. The results are incorporated into urban strategies and help to develop them further. As part of the excursion, two neighbourhoods will be visited that are characterised in different ways by dynamic in-migration: Dortmund's Nordstadt (as part of the Science Night) and the district of Hörde (on 29 October 2024 from 4 pm as a second excursion). In dialogue with the researchers and based on recent findings, we will shed light on the different life worlds of ‘arriving and staying’ and, certainly, identify new research questions.
In addition to the researchers, two social planners from Dortmund city council will accompany the excursion in order to discuss with the participants how social science knowledge can be turned into concrete action.