Research Line 1

Framework Concept and Data Selection Coordination: Bauhaus-Universität Weimar

Research Line 1 of the proposed Research plan is titled „Long-term insights in the history of infrastructure provisioning“. This seeks to answer the central research question:

How do infrastructure developments look alike over time?

Infrastructure is seen as the necessary organisational backbone of an economy throughout history, from a strategic military point of view to a basis of social order and organization thereof. A huge variety of definitions has been suggested by national agencies, national and regional governments, academia, dictionaries and of course the financial community over time. The approach of defining infrastructure by its strategic motivation is hardly a useful way to define infrastructure, but instead clouds the ability of investors, governments and their citizens to understand, advocate and direct capital toward these assets. In 1966, Jochimsen defined infrastructure as – “the sum of all material, institutional and personal assets, facilities and conditions available to an economy based on the division of labour and its individual economic units that contribute to realising the assimilation of factor remuneration, given an expedient allocation of resources. The term material infrastructure stands for the sum of all physical assets, equipment and facilities and the term institutional infrastructure points to the norms and rules, which develop and are set in a society over time; in addition, the term personal infrastructure is used to encompass the number and qualities of people in a market economy.” (Jochimsen, 1996)

Based on the wider definition it is our intention to break the understanding of infrastructure further down in this structured research approach by introducing a four stages approach that consists of the understanding of the historical framework-, country-specific-, sector-specific- and project-specific-characteristics.