As the coal phase-out in Germany must be concluded by 2038, many of the effected (former) coal regions are already facing extensive structural change on a societal and economic level. Especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) must meet resulting challenges like skill shortage, high levels of unemployment or a pressure to innovate if they want to remain competitive in their respective fields of business. Topics like digitalisation and artificial intelligence have become increasingly relevant in this transition. All these topics necessitate the development of new competencies and qualifications as well as technological solutions to adapt business models to a post-coal economy.

Although adaption to that change is inevitable, SMEs often lack resources and specialised knowledge to identify and implement appropriate measures for transformation. At the same time, universities and other research entities have brought forward numerous findings and innovations in the field of labour research that could mitigate the negative impact of structural change and that illustrate effective strategic solutions. However, transferring this knowledge into SMEs poses a challenge and scientific findings hardly make their way into execution in SMEs.

To close this transfer gap the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has established Regional Competence Centres (ReKodA) who promote university-industry collaboration. The project “Knowledge and Innovation Network: Labour Research” (WIN:A) explores these processes of knowledge transfer and facilitates the exchange between involved actors from academia, intermediary organisations like chambers of commerce or labour unions as well as SMEs’ management and work councils. To this end, the question of how the positions of various actors within an epistemic network, along with the types and distribution of knowledge, influence knowledge transfer within the network arises. Exploring this question, a three-step approach was selected. Firstly, a survey among the thirteen ReKodA was conducted, putting emphasizes on the perspective of scientific actors. Secondly, the survey results were analysed in an epistemic map focussing four main sections of interest:
1) identifying the actors present in the epistemic network,
2) establishing and qualifying relations between these actors,
3) highlighting actors in key positions,
4) determining different types of knowledge and their relation to different types of actors.

Thirdly, the epistemic map was visualized. The results indicate a complex epistemic map with a variety of interacting entities and hence an agility of interaction and communication processes. This indicates that knowledge transfer cannot be described by a standardized procedure. A cybernetic approach is required, that can provide a framework for initiating, supporting and continuously optimizing the transfer process. The results are interpreted by applying and elaborating a system-theoretical model (Transfer Engineering). Future work will also concern the transferability to epistemic relationships outside the (former) coal regions, e.g., to other competence clusters.

Keywords: Knowledge management, transfer, SMEs, structural change, epistemic map.