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"Fight Over the Cake or Own the Kitchen !"
Municipal Finance Symposium
19 – 21 November 2026
Hochschule für Gestaltung HfG
(Ulm School of Design)
Am Hochsträß 8
89081 Ulm
Germany
Transformative Municipal Finance Beyond Redistribution Infighting
Expanding Municipal Agency through Non-Extractive Finance, Local Monetary Architecture, and Institutional Innovation
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Deadline Submissions of Abstracts
Notification of Acceptance
Registration Opens
Final Programme Published
Municipal Finance Symposium
Timeline
About the Symposium
The problem
Municipalities across the world are experiencing strict fiscal austerity and unsustainable debt levels with varying severity, rooted in a systematic architectural failure in multi-level governance. In Germany, the structural financing gap between rapidly growing public needs and shrinking available resources has produced intense redistribution conflicts: between municipalities and counties, between states and national governments, over increasingly limited funds. Proposed solutions to municipal financing problems typically focus on meliorative policy adjustments — tweaking transfer formulas, lobbying for larger budget allocations, or optimising fiscal governance within existing frameworks — rather than addressing the fundamental systemic conditions.
This redistribution dynamic unfolds largely disconnected from different sustainable development and social change discourses, which themselves seem siloed from one another. The combined effect of these parallel disconnections — fiscal politics here, ecological transition there, social transformation somewhere else — makes any attempt to coherently address the challenges facing municipalities an intractable problem. But is it really?
Our hypothesis
This symposium advances the hypothesis that framing municipal finance as a zero-sum redistribution problem blocks the possibility to open an ambitious discussion about the social foundations of finance itself. Current institutional arrangements severely restrict local public sector agency, and reinforce an outdated top-down social contract. There is a growing awareness in different applied and theoretical contexts that more can be achieved by joining forces.
What's already working elsewhere
- Non-profit and cooperative banks and credit unions proved more resilient during the great financial crisis, putting communities before profit
- Multilateral trade credit set-off shows that collaborative approaches optimise liquidity efficiency and reduce late payments
- Ergodicity economics proves mathematically and empirically that pooling resources outperforms acting alone
- Non-convertible mutual credit frameworks already give SMEs cash relief through local currency systems, especially in times of crisis
Of course, solutions based on the financial economy, such as municipal bonds and sustainability bonds issued by local authorities, are the obvious default option for raising much-needed liquidity at the local level. But they come with additional costs, mainly the interest payments to the bond-holders that fluctuate with the vagaries of the financial markets.
Why keep it local
This symposium is inspired by the motivation to keep the control of local finances local. More specifically, why not extend or connect the monetary, financial, and organisational models and trust-based and trust-reinforcing frameworks listed above to municipalities? Integrating these discursive threads — and looking more deeply at monetary architecture — opens fundamentally different solution spaces than are visible from within any single discourse.
Three areas of innovation anchor the symposium:
Financial Instruments
How municipalities can expand their financial agency beyond the redistribution paradigm through novel instruments, credit mechanisms, and institutional arrangements provided by collaborative finance, ergodicity economics, and ethical banking.
Local Monetary Architecture
How local currency systems can be optimised for B2B trade and extended to municipal budgeting for greater local resilience.
Institutional Design
How innovative governance structures can realign political representation, local economic policy, and public and private organisational forms to strengthen municipal transformative capacity.
Two structural questions frame the discussion throughout: How can the economic power of municipalities be radically expanded beyond zero-sum competition for redistributed funds? And how can mutual credit systems be extended to include public sector actors?
Why municipalities
Municipalities are closest to citizens, to the local region, and to the material conditions of everyday life. They are the key agents of any serious transformation project. Yet they are systematically denied the economic and political power this role demands. The yield of this symposium is oriented toward identifying strategic pathways through which municipalities can be endowed with substantially greater economic agency — and implicitly political authority — by placing non-extractive finance and local monetary instruments at the centre of that project, and by beginning to break away from the deep institutional path dependency that makes the status quo appear inevitable.
Themes
These nine themes translate the points above into concrete areas of inquiry.
Finance Challenges & Rethinking Municipal Finance
Innovative financial instruments & local monetary architecture
Ethical banking, collaborative finance & social-ecological transformation
Trade Finance and Liquidity Efficiency in Payment Systems & Multilateral Trade Credit Set-off (MTCS)
Ergodicity Economics and Cooperative Economic Models
Institutional Design for Transformative Municipalities
Political Economy of Municipal Transformation
Digital Infrastructure for Municipal Finance
Dynamic Modelling of Monetary Systems
Cross-Cutting Questions
These questions cut across all nine themes and should be adressed by contributions.
How can municipalities expand their economic agency beyond dependence on fiscal redistribution?
To what extent must public sector financial innovation rely on investment capital?
Can working capital innovations like mutual credit and liquidity efficiency innovations like multilateral trade credit set-off (MTCS) also play a role in local public sector finance?
Which financial innovations enable municipalities to retain greater control over locally generated value?
How can local currencies and mutual credit systems include public-sector actors (and vice versa)?
Which institutional arrangements strengthen municipal resilience and transformative capacity?
What is the role of a local monetary architecture in sustainable regional development?
What governance innovations are needed to support collaborative local finance?
How can municipalities become active designers rather than passive recipients of financial systems?
Which institutional innovations can reconnect finance with social and ecological objectives?
How can local financial systems improve long-term resilience rather than merely short-term efficiency?
Exchange Format
Rather than functioning as a conventional conference centred exclusively on presentations, the Municipal Finance Symposium is designed as a collaborative working symposium. We currently envisage an alternating format of:
- Keynote presentations
- Research presentations
- Thematic workshops
- Moderated discussions
- Collaborative reflection sessions
This format is intended to encourage dialogue across disciplines and between theory and practice, allowing participants to jointly explore new approaches rather than merely presenting completed work. The final programme will be shaped by the range and quality of submitted contributions.
Transdisciplinarity
The Municipal Finance Symposium is intentionally designed as a transdisciplinary forum. Rather than organising contributions according to established academic disciplines such as economics, political science, public administration, or finance, the symposium is structured around concrete domains of innovation. These themes are intended to foster dialogue between researchers, municipal practitioners, public authorities, ethical and cooperative banks, complementary currency initiatives, regional development organisations, social enterprises, and policymakers.
Our central premise is that genuinely innovative approaches to municipal finance will emerge not from isolated disciplinary perspectives, but from integrating bodies of knowledge that have largely developed in parallel. We therefore explicitly encourage contributions that bridge disciplines, sectors, and practical experience.
Speakers
We will announce first speakers from early October onwards and add more until the final programme is published.
Practical Information
The Municipal Finance Symposium is intentionally designed to balance presentations with collaborative discussion and reflection. The programme therefore alternates between keynote lectures, paper presentations, workshops, and structured exchange sessions.
Day 1 — Thursday,
19 November 2026
Arrival & Registration
Lunch
Welcome Session
Keynotes, Presentations & Workshops I
Coffee Break
Keynotes, Presentations & Workshops II
Buffet Dinner, Reception & Informal Exchange
Day 2 — Friday,
20 November 2026
Keynotes, Presentations & Workshops III
Lunch
Keynotes, Presentations & Workshops IV
Coffee Break
Keynotes, Presentations & Workshops V
Buffet Dinner & Evening Exchange
Day 3 — Saturday,
21 November 2026
Working Groups & Collaborative Sessions
Coffee Break
Future Projects, Research Networks & Closing Discussion
Lunch
Closing of the Municipal Finance Symposium
Participation fees have not yet been finalised. Our objective is to establish a balanced fee structure that reflects participants' differing financial capacities. The final pricing model will take into account factors such as:
- Institutional affiliation
- Non-profit status
- Independent researchers
- Participants from lower-income countries
- Travel distance and associated costs
Students and early-career researchers
Where possible, we also intend to explore options for travel support and fee reductions.
Fee will be announced on this website upon the opening of registration from 13 October 2026.
Directions to HfG Ulm
Am Hochsträß 8,
89081 Ulm
Germany
Public Transport
Tram number 2 towards "Kuhberg," get off at the "Kuhberg Schulzentrum" stop (10–15 minute walk) – Exit the tram to the right and walk downhill about 10 m along the platform until a footpath crosses the tracks to the right. – Take this path to the right across the tracks; it leads you through an underpass beneath the main road. – Right after the underpass, turn right and follow the path until you reach the main road, from which a side road branches off to the right over a bridge. – Cross the main road and follow the path along the side road straight ahead, over a bridge crossing the bypass road. – After a 10 minute walk, HfG Ulm will be on your right-hand side. Take the stairs by the yellow post box into the building. The event area is on the 1st floor (2nd floor US-style), and the HfG Archive with the exhibition is on the top floor (3rd floor / 4th floor US-style).
By Car
From Stuttgart/Munich – A8: exit at Ulm Nord – Take the B10 towards Ulm, Friedrichshafen – Take the exit "Ulm Universität, Wissenschaftsstadt" onto K9915 (Berliner Ring) – Continue to the exit "Kuhberg Schulzentrum" – Turn left onto Egginger Weg – Immediately turn right again: onto Am Hochsträß, and continue to the turning circle (bus stop)
From Memmingen – A7/E43: take the exit towards Ulm, Neu-Ulm, Senden – Continue on the B28 – Merge onto the B30, towards Friedrichshafen, Biberach, Ulm-Wiblingen – Take the exit "Erbach, Ulm-Donautal" – Continue on the K9915 (Kuhbergring) – Turn right onto Egginger Weg – Immediately turn right again: onto Am Hochsträß, and continue to the turning circle (bus stop)
Accessible Entry
The HfG Archive on the top floor of the HfG building can be reached accessibly via the entrances on the 2nd floor (elevator to the left of the entrance, up to the 3rd floor) as well as via the entrance on the 3rd floor. To get there, please follow the street "Am Hochsträß," which leads left around the building, past the gatehouse. Please note: there is no accessible route within the building between the 1st and 2nd floors. Please use the outdoor path via the street instead.
Parking
Please preferably use the parking spaces located below the building.
For participants who need budget-friendly accommodation, we have reserved a block of 25 beds at the Jugendherberge Ulm (Ulm Youth Hostel). The booking code for this block is "MFS-2026" — please provide this when booking. We have 5 single rooms, 6 twin rooms, and 4 four-bed rooms available. The youth hostel is only a 15-minute walk from the HfG.
DJH Baden-Württemberg e.V.
Jugendherberge Ulm
Grimmelfinger Weg 45
89077 Ulm
Telefone: +49 731 38 44 55
Email: JH-ulm@jugendherberge.de
Internet: www.jugendherberge-ulm.de
If you prefer other accommodation, please consult these portals.
Live-Stream
Most presentations of the MFS-2026 will be live-streamed here.
Ulm School of Design — 1953-1968
A Pedagogy for Democracy
Founded in 1953 by Inge Aicher-Scholl, Otl Aicher, and Max Bill, the Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm (HfG Ulm) was never conceived as a conventional design academy. Its origins were explicitly political: Inge Aicher-Scholl, sister of the executed White Rose resistance members Hans and Sophie Scholl, founded the school as a direct response to the moral and institutional collapse that had enabled National Socialism. Design, in this founding vision, was not a matter of aesthetics or commercial styling — it was a civic discipline, a means of rebuilding a rational, transparent, and participatory public culture in postwar Germany.
This conviction shaped the school's entire pedagogical architecture. Students were trained not merely in form-giving but in semiotics, sociology, ergonomics, systems theory, and political philosophy, on the premise that objects, environments, and communication systems structure the possibilities of collective life. Good design was understood as an infrastructure of democratic participation: legible, honest, and resistant to manipulation — the visual and material counterpart to an open society.
The school's most enduring legacy, the "Ulm Model," fused rigorous scientific method with social responsibility, producing designers who saw themselves as co-authors of public institutions rather than servants of private clients. Though the HfG closed in 1968 amid funding disputes and internal political tensions, its influence on Germany's postwar identity — and on the broader European tradition linking design to democratic renewal — proved durable.
For our symposium on municipal finance and monetary architecture, the schools history offers a resonant frame for what we mean by "kitchen": institutions, like objects, can be designed — deliberately, transparently, and in service of collective self-governance — rather than simply inherited.
Get Involved — Students & Volunteers
The symposium doesn't run on speakers alone. We are looking for students and volunteers who want a hand in it.
Why join
Working the symposium means direct exposure to the people and institutions actively rethinking municipal monetary architecture — not as an audience member, but as part of the team making the event happen. You'll work alongside practitioners from ecoloc and our partner institutions, see how a symposium comes together, and leave with a concrete line for your CV or portfolio and a special experience at the avant guard of social change.
What you'll do
Session & Programme Support
Make sessions run smoothly and support moderators and speakers
Streaming & Live Technology
Livestream, recording and technical production
On-Site Coordination & Hospitality
Welcome participants and coordinate the physical event
Documentation & Media
Photography, video, social media and reporting
Who we are looking for
Students in political science, economics, urban studies, design, or related fields — no prior event experience required.
What matters most is reliability, curiosity, initiative, and a willingness to solve problems as they arise.
We are particularly looking for volunteers from Ulm who have a genuine interest in local economic development, community development, sustainability, and social change, and who would enjoy being part of a transdisciplinary symposium bringing together researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and local actors.
What you get
- Direct access to speakers and sessions
- A behind-the-scenes view of institutional innovation in practice
- Named acknowledgment in symposium materials
How to apply
Send your application to events@ecoloc.org.
Organiser
ecoloc - local transformation design is a steward-owned think tank (ltd. & foundation) based in Basel (CH) working on local monetary architectures and municipal institutional innovation. We develop local transformation frameworks that align economic, social, and environmental sustainability objectives through the design of non-extractive monetary and financial instruments in collaboration with local public sector actors and key local stakeholders to cultivate socio-economic transformation at the local level.
www.ecoloc.org (our website currently under construction)
Partners
We will announce all our partners, sponsors and other supporter before registration.
Registration
Registration will open following the notification of acceptance for contributions.
Accepted contributors will automatically receive registration information. Additional places may become available for invited participants and observers, subject to capacity.