Facilitating a new rurality beyond GDP through a Community Operating System (COS)

This project aims to empower Swedish rural communities towards an alternative development model beyond GDP through social, technical and ecological transformation processes in favour of collaborative economy (CE) and local self-sufficiency (LSS).

It does this through firstly, the co-creation of a Community Operating System (COS) that defines a model for a local transition to CE and LSS, and secondly, transforming this model into local technical infrastructure through a COS app that lets the community gather, own and act on its own data in relation to this model.

The project builds on a transdisciplinary collaboration involving expertise in architecture, human geography, participatory planning, systems thinking, UX design and software development.

It is carried out in 6 work packages:1) Delivering a state-of-the-art on degrowth and beyond GDP strategies for rural development; 2) Examining international good practices on CE and LSS in rural areas; 3) Setting up two testbeds in rural Sweden and co-design a local model for implementing CE and LSS.

From this COS model develop a system map outlining socio-technical interrelations; 4) Based on the system map, design and build a COS app which acts as local technical infrastructure for the community to implement and monitor their COS model; 5) Collaboratively assess the COS and potential for upscaling; 6) Disseminate project results to a wide range of stakeholders to ensure local impact and favour replicability.