Caroline Wehrmann
Caroline was one of the founders of the master Communication Design for Innovation. She enjoyed the process of developing its curriculum: working on the cutting edge of science communication and education. From the start of her career, Caroline is interested in personal professional development. In her research she now focuses primarily on professional development of actors who work together in collaborative networks and transdisciplinary teams to solve complex (communication) problems.
Dealing with complexity can’t be taught in the context of ‘classical knowledge transfer’ but requires an approach to education that is much closer to the real-life context. Therefore, many universities are creating so-called 'innovation spaces' or 'living labs' to better prepare their students for the challenges of society. In living labs students, researchers, private and public organizations, and users collaborate to analyze and find solutions for complex problems. So, design thinking, knowledge co-creation, multi-actor processes, experimentation and reflection take place in real-life contexts.
Caroline investigates academic teaching and learning in living labs to understand how these settings can contribute to the advancement of higher education in the 21st century, and in particular to gaining adaptive expertise: the ability to invent new solutions and even new procedures to problems that can’t be solved on basis of routine.
