Transcriptions, Interviews, and Survey data: Sustainability Innovations in Schorfheide-Chorin and Fontainebleau-Gâtinais Biosphere Reserves (2019-24)

The data collection was conducted in the two case study Biosphere Reserves: Schorfheide-Chorin Biosphere Reserve (Germany, SCBR) and Fontainebleau-Gâtinais Biosphere Reserve (France, FGBR). First, an inventory was made of sustainability innovations in the case study areas. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with regional key informants to identify sustainability innovations. The interviewees were asked: (1) to share their understanding of sustainability innovations; (2) to list all projects and initiatives they knew of or were part of, that could qualify as sustainability innovations; and (3) to share the names of other relevant actors in the area, who could help in identifying further sustainability innovations as regional key informants. The inventory started with interviewing representatives of each Biosphere Reserve administration as regional key informants. In a snowball approach, the people who were mentioned as potential key informants were asked for an interview. In each area, 17 regional key informants were interviewed. The interviews took place for 60 minutes on average, face-to-face or online. The interviews were recorded, translated and analysed for content on regional sustainability innovations. Data saturation was reached once the sustainability innovations – and potential regional key informants - listed by the last interviewees repeated what had already been identified. The inventory phase identified 134 and 110 sustainability innovations in SCBR and FGBR, respectively. Second, a pilot study was conducted on two cases in SCBR to better understand the characteristics of sustainability innovations. For this purpose, two sustainability innovations were selected in SCBR, which were stabilized, well-established, and well-known projects with differing purposes. The first case, the Solar Explorer, was a technological and service innovation: a solar-powered catamaran developed for showcasing, research, and educational purposes. The second case, Brodowin Ecovillage, was a social innovation, i.e. large-scale organic farm, which a network of various actors created following the re-privatisation of farmland after the fall of the German Democratic Republic. Three representatives were contacted for interviews to collect expert knowledge, for each case. The representatives had different functions and were employed by various organisations. Three interviews were conducted about the Solar Explorer, two about Brodowin Ecovillage. The semi-structured interviews were organized to gain a general understanding of each case and the context, actors, processes, and outcomes. The interviews were conducted online (40 -100 minutes), recorded and transcribed for qualitative content analysis. Third, to identify different types of sustainability innovations based on their transformative outcomes and to unravel the underlying governance arrangements through social network analysis, the researcher conducted a survey to collect data from a large number of cases. She contacted 215 sustainability innovations for a survey in person or via Zoom (131 innovations in SCBR and 84 innovations in FGBR). She completed 68 survey questionnaires in SCBR (summer of 2022) and 61 questionnaires (autumn of 2021) in FGBR. The survey questionnaire aimed to gain (1) an overview of the sustainability innovations, actors, processes and outcomes and (2) of regional networks. The archetype analysis built on the first part of the survey. The social network analysis built on the second part of the survey. In the network section of the survey, interviewees were given a list of relevant organisations and were asked to mark those with which they had a connection.