On 19-20 July 2022 Steinbeis 2i GmbH invited the RESTART_4Danube consortium to Karlsruhe for a two-day city-study tour. The balance of historical heritage, green spaces, leisure facilities and urban activities won Karlsruhe the title of the most liveable city in 2016. In addition, Karlsruhe won the "EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF SMART TOURISM 2020" competition in the cultural heritage and creativity category (Smart City of Cultural Heritage and Creativity 2020). Finally, this city is the first and only German city to be included in the international UNESCO Creative Cities Network as a city of media art. For these reasons, Karlsruhe represents a very interesting case study.

During their stay, project partners could learn more about the transformation of the old slaughterhouse (Alter Schlachthof) into a creative park of 7ha supporting CCI companies. After a short introductory presentation, Katrin Brehm from the K³ Kultur- und Kreativwirtschaftsbüro Karlsruhe walked us through the different buildings: From the start-up incubation in Perfekt Futur (a former pig market) where CCI entrepreneurs get an office in shipping containers to their further development in the centre for growth & consolidation and centre for creative spaces. The entire area, which has been successively renovated in the last 15 years, also contain workshops, cafes as well as concert halls and a space for artists. The consortium had the opportunity to exchange with 2 founders: Marius Krämer who presented the heyvie app that provides neurocentric training to fight pain and migraines as well as from Caylee Grey from Get Messy Art.

The Karlsruhe tour also went to GoodSpaces – a coworking space that opened its doors in March 2022 in the buildings of a former steam workshop. The consortium could enjoy the facilities provided to the co-workers: wifi, well-equipped conference rooms and tasty gastronomy as it took part in a workshop in the frame of the Creativity World Forum. The entire area, which combines tradition and modernity in a very nice way, is offering working and community space to boost creativity, ideas and social impact.

The RESTART_4Danube consortium made an online excursion to the neighbouring city of Mannheim, where Dr. Matthias Rauch who heads the Cultural Innovation & Creative Economy Department of NEXT MANNHEIM presented a number of concrete cross-sectoral projects at the intersection of art, music, medicine, technology and innovation.

Finally, another highlight of the city tour consisted in the visit of the Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe (ZKM) that is a world-renowned and unique cultural institution that is way more than a museum. ZKM brings art and technology together – two fields in which the city of Karlsruhe has a long tradition. ZKM is a centre for producing/developing new forms of arts as well as a centre giving the possibility to use new forms of technology. The consortium could catch a glimpse of several temporary exhibitions (BioMedien; The Artwork as a Living System) with interactive, playful and thought-provoking artworks. ZKM is further example of urban regeneration as it is hosted in a former munition factory.