Transforming Rural and Industrial Regions

Rural regions are confronted with enormous social challenges. Digitalization, decarbonization and demographic change will make it necessary for many rural regions in Germany to undergo a far-reaching transformation process.

The future of rural-industrialized regions is of great importance for economic, social and ecological prosperity and the political stability of liberal democracies, as a lack of quality of life and future prospects for people in rural regions can cause great uncertainty and destabilization.

Research, politics, civil society and companies are equally challenged to develop new approaches to co-production and transformation for rural-industrialized areas.

The Socio-Informatics Conference 2024 aims to tackle this topic and highlight and discuss pressing issues from a regional, national and international perspective.

In particular, the aim is to provide an opportunity to present current research topics and results to politicians and to jointly explore development needs.

The transformation requirements of rural areas concern issues from all areas of life and work, such as the future of the production and service economy, the future of healthcare and successful ageing, as well as questions about good ways of living together and social cohesion. All fields can benefit from meaningful digitalization and the development of humane socio-technical systems. However, the human- and practice-oriented digitalization of rural socio-technical systems requires research, development and implementation approaches adapted to the regions.

The Socio-Informatics Conference 2024 brings together high-ranking speakers from science and politics and focuses on current challenges and innovative solutions for the transformation of rural-industrialized regions.

The Socio-Informatics Conference 2024 is organized by the Fraunhofer Institute FIT in cooperation with the University of Siegen, the International Institute for Socio-Informatics and the Department of Human-Computer Interaction of the German Informatics Society.