Project Details
Projekt
AdaptInfra Subproject 2: Institutional Framework Conditions and Financing Systems for Adaptation Processes of Municipal Infrastructures in Rural Areas
Subject Area
Human Geography
Term
since 2026
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 547031340
The aim of this project is to describe and explain the role of institutional framework conditions and financing systems on adaptation processes of municipal infrastructures. A conceptual framework is developed that uses institutional and spatial perspectives to examine adaptation processes (in response to pressure to adapt) within municipalities’ financial systems and provision of municipal infrastructure. The conceptual approach of this project addresses a research gap regarding the application of evolutionary-institutional and socio-technical perspectives on infrastructures and their adaptive capacity. In particular, the project focuses, on the one hand, on co-evolutionary processes between institutional regulatory and financing systems, and, on the other hand, on the adaptation of infrastructures in the context of specific pressures. Three types of infrastructure systems are considered as representative examples (child day-care and primary schools, water and wastewater, local public road transport), which differ in their characteristics as well as regulatory and financial structures, and, therefore, the potential for adaption. As the research is set in the context of rural and peripheral areas in four German Federal States (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saxony), it is expected to offer insights into the specific challenges of adaptive capacity for infrastructures in this type of spatial areas. At the same time the project will also generate hypotheses and results on the patterns adaptation, which will be applicable to future research on this topic in other spatial areas or in an international context. A mix of quantitative and qualitative methods is used to address the research questions. Using a case study approach with qualitative methods, the regulatory and financial systems will be evaluated regarding their enabling and inhibiting impacts on adaptation processes as well as the role of specific regional agents in changing institutions ('institutional work'). Quantitative methods will be applied to investigate the financial requirements for the considered infrastructure types, their determining factors, as well as the consequences of adaptation processes for cost structures and the spatial configuration of the infrastructure supply. Results of the project will contribute to the understanding of factors that promote and inhibit the adaptive capacity of infrastructures on a municipal scale. So far, the socio-technical perspective has not been applied to the co-evolution of technical requirements and possibilities to adapt municipal infrastructure (material dimension) and the formal regulatory and financial systems, policy models for regional development and regulatory niches (institutional dimension), while taking into account the role of actors (agency perspective).
DFG Programme
Research Units
