Real-world laboratories in theory and practice: Reflection of the research design regarding the sustainable transformation of urban spaces Authors Kerstin Meyer Institut Arbeit und Technik https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8451-7685 Dajana Esch Institut Arbeit und Technik https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0243-1360 Maria Rabadjieva Institut Arbeit und Technik https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5042-4907 DOI: https://doi.org/10.14512/rur.38 Keywords: Real-world laboratory, Transformation, Urban areas, Urban planning, Aaction research Abstract As part of sustainable transformation of municipalities, real-world laboratories have been increasingly used as instruments in research projects since 2015. However, the academic reflection of their implementation has so far been scarce. This paper views real laboratories as a cooperative instrument for the sustainable transformation of urban spaces. It investigates the research question, to what extend real-world laboratories work as a theoretical concept in practice. The paper undertakes a comparative analysis of the projects “Bottrop 2018+”, “KuDeQua” and “ProUrban”, where real-world laboratories present the central methodology. Despite their common theoretical background, the projects show significant differences in the subject matter, spatial scope, practitioners’ involvement, processes and procedures. Through the comparison, opportunities, challenges and possible problems in implementing real-world laboratories are worked out. Downloads Download data is not yet available. Downloads PDF (Deutsch) HTML (Deutsch) XML (Deutsch) Published Issue publication date 2021-08-31 (version 2)Published online first 2021-07-08 (version 1) Versions 2021-08-31 (2) 2021-07-08 (1) How to Cite Meyer, K., Esch, D. and Rabadjieva, M. (2021) “Real-world laboratories in theory and practice: Reflection of the research design regarding the sustainable transformation of urban spaces”, Raumforschung und Raumordnung | Spatial Research and Planning. DE, 79(4), pp. 366-381. doi: 10.14512/rur.38. More Citation Formats ACM ACS APA ABNT Chicago Harvard IEEE MLA Turabian Vancouver Download Citation Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS) BibTeX Issue Vol. 79 No. 4 (2021) Section Article License Copyright (c) 2021 Kerstin Meyer, Dajana Schlieter, Maria Rabadjieva This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Articles in Raumforschung und Raumordnung - Spatial Research and Planing are published under a Creative Commons license. Until Vol. 79 No. 1, articles were published under a CC BY-SA license. From Vol. 79 No. 2 (2021), the license applied is the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License CC BY 4.0. Under this license, anyone may access, copy, redistribute, or adapt these articles, as long as the author and original source are properly cited and the contributions are distributed under the same license as the original.