This is a CTP of initiative: Living Knowledge ‐ Wissenschaftsladen Bonn (Germany)
Date: Late 80’ties
Keywords: Funding, Project, EU
Understand: This CTP is the first big project for Science Shop Bonn, and is thus part of the founding string of events. As a very old CTP, some aspects are lighter on details than newer CTPs, as the interviewee has some of it from secondary sources and due to memory.
After the first critical turning point where Science Shop Bonn received public money to help getting jobs for academics, they felt it natural to continue in this area, and develop an environmental training course for academics. They even obtained EU funding for the project, but ran into problems with their local authorities. Quite concisely explained by the interviewee:
Yes as I mentioned before this was the next almost logical step. So, we learned a lot of environmental training or training for environmental advisers. So we looked at a couple of these that were already running, and we developed quality criteria and the we said okay we are going to run… so we developed a training course of I think 18 months with an additional 12 months practical training for our students. Moreover, we applied for funding from the European social fond. This money we got, but the public money in the European social fund, they ask for additional funding from another public place, and in this case it was the unemployment office. The unemployment office said “No, we are not going to fund this”. So it was about, I don’t know, 1.5 million D-mark, which was a quite huge project especially for such a young organization. And we got the 50% agreement from Europe, but our local unemployment office wouldn’t support us, which would mean that they didn’t even have to put money in it for developing the training course but just paying the training fee, the seminar fee, for the unemployed academics as they do or did for other unemployed people as well. So we even had to contact the regional unemployment ministry for work, and they gave the order to the local unemployment office to support us. This did not really support our connections to the unemployment office because they were forced to support us, it was not their own decision but they did it.
So it was a natural development for them, although not without troubles. They had to circumvent the local authorities, and go to the regional/state authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia, who then ordered the local authorities to support them. With a 50% funding from EU, it meant a 1.5 million D-mark expense for the local unemployment office. And it might have hurt their relationship with the unemployment office, which was their biggest external ally from the first CTP. The money also came with some strings attached, like monitoring, and also meant that the science shop developed in a specific direction:
The interesting thing about that was that we were successful because many of our students, I call them students although they were adults with at least an amount of degrees. Most of them definitely found a job in the environmental sector, which was really a success. However, one thing we had to do during all these trainings, 3 trainings in total. We had to prove that our students found a job through our trainings and our systems. That is why I checked all the newspapers for job offers in the environmental fields. It was a service in the classroom. Every Monday they got the print out of job offers from all the big German newspapers from all over the country. Not all of them but at least 10-15 newspapers we had. Just to show and to demonstrate theses are jobs in the environmental sector have a look at this and do not be too narrow in your view. Look beyond the edge of your table, your plate, and there might be something that suits you in your field in you education. These job offers in the classroom were the starting point for our next activity.
The next activity is described in the next CTP, which is a directly related development to this project.
Environmental factors
The high number of unemployed academics, coupled with a lack of competent workers in the environmental field, offered a window of opportunity for Science Shop Bonn and the project in this CTP. This window is the same as in the previous CTP.
Actors of relevance
The European social fond who enabled Science Shop Bonn to get funding for the project.
The unemployment office whom Science Shop Bonn needed to collaborate with to get the 50% cofounding required by the European social fund.
The regional unemployment ministry for work who ordered the local unemployment office to support WILA Bonn.
The first CTP is a direct related event, leading to the project described in this CTP. I.e. it would not have happened without it. Due to the success of this project, it also lead to other similar subsequent projects:
Okay so we ran the project. The idea we had was: It doesn’t matter if you are a natural scientist, an economist or a technician or a social scientist. Everybody can find provisional job in the environmental sector. And we were successful with this project. So we added two follow up projects in this field of adult education. This was due to financial restrictions by the unemployment office, because we no longer had public money in it but they still were one year projects, one year trainings. For theses trainings we hired teachers for specific parts for specific lessons. We were a staff of 4 organizing that.
They thus became further and further embedded in this type of work, and they are still providing adult education and facilitating job offers today. The experience with the students, and the informal service of finding job posting for them, also led them into a completely new area:
It is all connected. Because now we do not have no more funding, funding for the fourth adult education training. All our students said was:” but we want to have this information on job offers”. So, I wrote a press release and, why not, tried to send it to a broader audience instead of just sending it to our students. So, I wrote the press release, and within 4-6 weeks we had 750 subscribers for that. Moreover, over the years we had a second sector for social sciences, this one was for environmental sciences and natural sciences. In addition, we made a second one for social sciences, we even tried a third one for ICT-jobs but we cancelled that after a short period. Nevertheless, with the two magazines on social sciences and natural sciences we had up to 11000 subscribers weekly.
This related event is the next CTP described, and is directly tied to these education projects they were running.
As already described earlier, there were some sticky points in the getting the 50% finding needed from the local authorities before the EU social fund would support them. Science Shop Bonn circumvented the local authorities, went to their superiors, which then ordered the local unemployment centre to co-fund them:
but our local unemployment office wouldn’t support us […] So we even had to contact the regional unemployment ministry for work. And they ordered the local unemployment office to support us. This didn’t really support our connections to the unemployment office, because they were forced to support us, it was not their own decision, but they did it.
The implications of this is hard to ascertain, they did however receive the funding, and they had subsequent projects related to the unemployment office as well.
Besides this episode, there seems to be other contestation of this development.
The event was planned, but not anticipated as such. This CTP is directly linked to the previous CTP, which was a project in the same area, and thus applying for this project was a natural development. However, they had no way of knowing initially, at the previous CTP, that the European social fund would have this window of opportunity.
This CTP also had importance for later CTPs, one of which is their main income to this day, and this could not have been anticipated at this time.
It should be noted that this CTP is very old, and although the interviewee was present at the time, it is hard to talk about anticipation about events that transpired 20-30 years ago.
Learning is hard to talk about this CTP. A lot of what transpired had large implications for their development, yet this CTP was but one string in a range of events.
Learning that can be inferred here are that windows of opportunity for funding can be quite crucial, and that you should not give up if one partners turns you down. I might not be recommendable in all situation to circumvent a partner and go to their superiors, who can force their collaboration, but all options should be considered.
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