Competence Center for Labor Research for Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland founded under the name "KOMATRA"

The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research is providing 10 million euros in funding for the project "Shaping Transformation in the Saar-Pfalz Corridor of the Future: Value-based Working and Learning in the Circular Economy/ Kompetenzzentrum Ar-beitsforschung: Transformation im Zukunftskorridor Saar-Pfalz gestalten - werteorientiertes Lernen und Arbeiten in der Kreislaufwirtschaft " (KOMATRA)

Upheavals and processes of change in the regional economic structures in Saarland and Rhein-land-Pfalz pose major challenges to working environments. This applies both to industries un-dergoing structural change, such as the automotive sector, and to particularly dynamic growth industries, such as medical technology. Working and learning must be rethought, forward-looking, dynamic and geared to the specific requirements of companies and employees in or-der to ensure a sustainable economy. The anchor point for this transformation is formed by values as the core of competence orientation and work design. An example of this is sustaina-bility from an ecological, economic and social perspective. Based on the example of the circu-lar economy, new forms of working, learning and regionality are tested within the framework of KOMATRA according to the latest scientific findings and in cooperation with regional companies. In this way, KOMATRA offers companies in Germany's Saar-Pfalz region orienta-tion in the realignment of their work processes and business models.

The results are disseminated via transformation coaches, public events, social partnerships and cross-industry conferences. The development of learning opportunities and work design ap-proaches is embedded in an interdisciplinary research design that will also generate profitable scientific findings in the fields of labor research, education science, technology development and circular economy.

Background: The future of value creation: regional competence centers for labor research

With KOMATRA, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is launching the second round of funding for the Regional Competence Centers for Labor Re-search. The focus is on the topics of "health", "leadership" and "circular economy". With the Regional Competence Centers for Labor Research, the BMBF is pursuing the goal of integrat-ing labor research more closely with work design in company practice and university educa-tion. With a focus on the strengths of their respective regions, the competence centers are to be established as a central point of contact in science in order to direct research specifically to the challenges in the regional working environments and to support the transfer into company practice and the breadth of society.

The KOMATRA project is being funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research under the "Future of Value Creation: Regional Competence Centers for Labor Research" pro-gram with around 10 million euros over a period of five years and is being supported by the Projektträger KA.

Cooperation in the interdisciplinary project network

The project is headed by Prof. Dr. Matthias Rohs, scientific director of the Institute for Tech-nology and Work e.V. (ITA) and holder of the Chair for Adult Education at the Rhineland-Palatinate Technical University Kaisers-lautern-Landau (RPTU). In addition to the ITA and the RPTU, other funded partner institutions are the Institute for Social Research and Social Economy (iso) e.V., Trier University of Applied Sciences with the Environmental Campus Birkenfeld, the Center for Me-chatronics and Automation Technology (ZeMA) gGmbH, the AWS Institute for digita-le Products and Processes gGmbH, saarland.innovation&standort e.V. and Arbeit und Leben gGmbH, as well as the University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz with the Gutenberg Health Hub. As funded corporate and appli-cation partners, Lohmann & Rauscher GmbH & Co. KG, Baldus Medizintechnik GmbH, the Wellgo Group, ISL Group Management GmbH and Woll Maschinenbau GmbH are joining the project.

Ansprechpartner*innen: