Main fields of expertise

  • Promotion of local innovation systems in rural and urban areas
  • Promotion of smart city and smart rural area concepts involving digitalisation aspects
  • Learning from and with Germany: Knowledge Transfer from insights of innovative approaches in the German eco-system via study tours, visits and research papers
  • Local economic development promotion
  • Cluster and value chain promotion
  • Promotion of innovative support instruments like innovation hubs, coworking spaces and research labs

Further information about my work and thoughts can be found on www.smartes.land.

Working experience

Since 2004: Partner in Mesopartner
2016 & 2017: Lecturer at Jacobs-University Bremen on Development Economics and Innovation Economics
2007-present: Lecturer at SEPT Master Course from the University of Leipzig in Leipzig, Hanoi and Ho-Chi-Minh-City on the topic of Regional Competitiveness
2003-2004: Private sector development specialist at GTZ headquarters, special focus on Latin America and South-eastern Europe
2001-2003: Junior professional in GTZ private sector development programme in Honduras
1999-2001: Researcher in joint INEF/IDS local cluster and global value chain project, Institute for Development and Peace, University of Duisburg

I am a founder and board member of the Structural Policy Foundation NRW, a network of economic promotion experts from the German Region of Northrhine-Westfalia who are interested in exchanging their experiences and organising interesting events.

Personal background

Born 1968. MA in social science with a specialisation in economics (Duisburg 1999)

Based in Bremen and Elte, Germany

  • I was born in 1968 in Elte, a lovely village in West Germany located in the Region of Muensterland
  • I always wanted to understand the driving forces of economic and social development in different regions, and the creative factors and pitfalls behind them
  • I wanted to get to know other realities outside my village. It provided me with different insights and new perspectives on how to see the world and my work
  • It became clear to me that sustainable economic and social growth is the basis for individual and societal satisfaction, creativity, and progress
  • After my scientific career, it became clear to me that I wanted to work with and learn from people with different and international experience
  • I realised that the experiences of private sector promotion in less-developed regions in the world are very rich. Many donor organisations active in this field face the challenge of promoting economic initiatives in weaker markets under the constraints of low budgets and high political justification. Constraints can lead to innovation. They have led in many cases to a treasure trove of impact-oriented business development experience, market-driven network initiatives, didactical tools and participatory monitoring procedures. Some of these learning experiences can contribute to innovative ways of promoting local economies also in industrialised countries
  • I love to experiment with, develop and implement new initiatives for economic development in conjunction with German and international colleagues
  • "Think global, act local" is quite a superficial phrase, but for me it became a way of life and work
  • I like my way of working, and will localize it further within Germany and the EU in the near future
  • That’s why I am also looking forward to living in the countryside again: to be well grounded in a root-based social and working environment!

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Mobile: +49-173-520-65-40 (Skype out)

Follow me on ResearchGate

Further information about my work and thoughts can be found on www.smartes.land

40 results:
Milestones in a process of innovation, change and development  
This anthology brings together a large variety of articles and comments by development scholars and practitioners from all over the world.  
Just (Energy) Transition as an interdisciplinary transformation challenge: Learning from the German experience  
The Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) commissioned Mesopartner PartG to summarize Germany’s Just Transition experience focusing on economic structural change and coal
phase-out in selected regions of Germany. The German Just Transition Process should be…
 
The system perspective on LED  
Mesopartner has regularly been asked to support the introduction of Local Economic Development (LED) or strengthen LED as an economic development approach in a country (see AR 2018, Article 3: How to introduce LED as an approach to economic change in a country).  
Let’s reimagine place together  
In November 2021, Mesopartner and a group of friends organised an online dialogue series. We invited a diverse group to jointly reimagine what we mean by “place” and how we approach this concept.  
Trends and requirements of the green transition of SMES in metal and wood processing sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina  
The need for the transformation towards greener and more inclusive and innovative industrial production is high on the agenda worldwide, especially so in the Western Balkans and the European Union. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the EU Green Deal as well as the…  
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