The conference entitled "Global Challenges, Regional Collaboration and the Role of Places" took place on June 14 in Florence and brought together participants from over 50 countries. The annual conference of the Regional Studies Association was organized in collaboration with the Department of Economics and Business Sciences and the Department of Architecture of the University of Florence.

During her lecture, Emilia Socha presented reflections from the TRAWOS joint project "BePart - Participation and Partnerships in Structural Change. Penetrating social innovations in Lusatia and strengthening them in practice". The aim of the project is to examine perspectives on structural change and the question of the feasibility of social innovations against the background of the biographical and collective experiences of the local population.

In the panel "Lost Places or Spaces of Possibilities? Shrinking Cities as Foregrounds for Urban Transformation", which was moderated by Bettina Knoop, the title of the presentation was "Shrinking Cities and Social Innovation: Empirical Insights from a Life-World Perspective". Based on initial empirical data from the case studies of the BePart project, examples were used to examine how biographical influences and past experiences of transformation shape future attitudes and how current processes of structural change in rural areas are negotiated and shape the actions of local actors.