The shaping of digitization gives computer science and information technologies a central responsibility. Digital technologies can no longer be understood merely as suppliers of tools that optimize and improve areas of work and life. Rather, the question is how we will live and work in the future, how we will communicate, how we will jointly shape an open and democratic society in the age of digitization.

In four scientific subprojects, exemplary technological solutions for selected societal challenges in the field of digitization are being researched and developed:

• Developing social proximity in virtual reality,
• Explainability of artificial intelligence decisions
• Interventions for more sustainable online shopping behavior.
• Low-threshold access to digital citizen participation

Common to all subprojects is the participatory research approach, in which citizens and users are involved in the research process from the very beginning, helping to shape and accompany it. This is not the only reason why the transfer between research and society has a special significance in Digitopias.

A cross-sectional subproject will also continuously implement measures for the dialog between society and researchers. In this way, users will be made aware of research and researchers will be brought into regular contact with practitioners. In addition, the prerequisites and factors for successful transfer will be systematically researched.

An important tool of transfer are laboratories, as they have been used at OFFIS for many years in all areas for the development, testing and demonstration of new technologies. In Digitopias, so-called Innovation Lounges are set up, which offer environments for very different steps and measures of the social innovation process - from the Creator's Lounge as a lab for prototype construction to the mobile City Lounge, which is designed for direct dialog with citizens on site.