Conceptual background paper on „Promoting coastal resilience through participation and Living Labs within the mareXtreme mission”

Coastal resilience needs more than data: it needs participation and real‑world experimentation.

To guide such processes, the mareXtreme mission has released a new conceptual background paper led by Lena Rölfer, Beate Ratter, and Greta Dekker on “Promoting coastal resilience through participation and Living Labs within the mareXtreme mission.”

In this overview document, the authors

😶‍🌫️ ❔ clarify key concepts and trace the roots of Living Lab approaches

⬆️ ⬇️ show how mareXtreme projects apply Living Labs across different scales

❌ ☑️ highlight opportunities and challenges when using these approaches in the context of marine extremes

The history of Living Labs and the glossary of key terms (p. 15) offer valuable insights for natural and social scientists working in transdisciplinary research — in marine science and beyond.

Click here for the conceptual background paper.

Rölfer, L., Dekker, G., Hoerterer, C., Höfig, T.W., Frahm, L., Knor, A., Krause, G., Achterberg, E.P., Kopp, H., Lemmen, C., Benavides, R., Karstensen, J., Gross, F., Kopf, A. & Ratter, B. (2026). Conceptual background: Promoting coastal resilience through participation and Living Labs within the mareXtreme mission. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20506290

Conceptual framework of participation, Living Labs, and ‘co-processes’ as the organisational structure for this paper (Rölfer et al., 2026).