ReForm – that stands for “Resources in Transformation” and is a Leibniz ScienceCampus that links various institutions and disciplines. The German Mining Museum Bochum, Leibniz Research Museum for Georesources, the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB), the Georg Agricola University of Applied Sciences (THGA), the Foundation History of the Ruhr Area (SGR) and the FernUniversität in Hagen (FUH) are involved.

The Campus aims to investigate the transformative potential of resources. Or to put it another way: How are people interwoven with their environment? How do social institutions emerge and change in connection with resources and their availability? What role do resources like coal or hydrogen play in social change? In this way, ReForm aims to improve the understanding of past and present societies, because resources, their acquisition and social appropriation keep societies moving. The main goal of the campus is thus to explore the potential of resources to change and to show which processes in human history have led to significant socio-economic transformations.

In order to achieve this research goal, scientists from the fields of archaeology, history, sociology and anthropology, economics as well as geosciences, material sciences and engineering from the participating institutions have joined forces. The group is represented externally by Prof. Dr Thomas Stöllner as spokesperson.