Future the development of a transmedia toolkit
Objective
The aim of this project is to further develop the research method in a
future-proof, online and offline form. This is called the transmedia toolkit. It
facilitates stakeholders to use future thinking around a social issue to arrive
at radical, widely supported innovations.
Relevance
Professional practice requires methods that link participation in district-
oriented energy transition to other social challenges. We are looking for
ways to link the energy transition with working on a sustainable living
environment and also by residents themselves. There is a need for short-
term thinking. The challenge is to connect possible futures with acting in
the present, so that we achieve radical innovation.
Approach
Most vision building methods linearly extrapolate the past via the present
to the future. Probing the future breaks with that continuity by taking a
leap into the distant future. Imagination, reframing and speculative design
are used to make a spectrum of possible futures imaginable.
Results
A hybrid (online/offline) toolkit that can be used in education and in
organizations, and in processes that also involve non-professionals.
Duration
01 December 2020 - 30 December 2021
Relationship of research, practice and education
As systemic design thinkers at the Hogeschool Utrecht (HU), we have
been using this future thinking as a research method for some time to
work on complex issues. We do this together with governments, citizens
and other relevant organizations, and in education we train
Communication and Multimedia Design students.
HU researchers involved in the research
Collaboration with knowledge partners
The toolkit is developed in collaboration with creative partners, Design Innovation Group and The Wrong Songs. Validation will take place in a real-life case of Energie-U, Utrecht residents who drive, organize and monitor sustainable energy at home, in their neighbourhood and in our city.
Co-financing
KIEM.K20.01.037
