Responsible Futuring

TACKLING SOCIETAL CHALLENGES AND
CO-SHAPING THE FUTURE WE WANT TO LIVE IN.

Today’s challenges are more complex than ever because they are part of complex societal, technological and environmental systems. Challenges are interrelated: tackling one today might raise issues tomorrow. Solutions that work in a context, might break into another. How to deal with our complex world, then? DesignLab University of Twente has developed the Responsible Futuring approach.

Let's join forces!

Be an agent of societal change by co-creating a future you want to live in.
Collaborate with stakeholders from different disciplines.
Tackle complex societal challenges by understanding and empathising with different perspectives.

At DesignLab, we have developed Responsible Futuring, our approach to addressing societal challenges. Rooted in the designerly tradition of design thinking, our approach departs from society and its challenges rather than solutions and technology. We employ trans-disciplinary practices, responsible design, and social involvement to drive societal impact. Like our approach to citizen science, we aim to engage citizens on relevant societal topics such as health innovation, digital society, and climate change.

Responsible Futuring promotes creative collaboration and knowledge exchange among engineers, social scientists, businesses, policymakers, and citizens. We value the expertise and lived experiences of all stakeholders, but also encourage them to break disciplinary boundaries and become agents of societal change. While shaping desirable futures, Responsible Futuring prompts us to recognise our role, contemplate the short- and long-term effects of societal challenges, ideas, and technologies, and generate potential solutions using moral imagination.

Pillars of Responsible Futuring
Connect & Relate
Bring together stakeholders and enable their collaboration
Understand & Frame
Get an in-depth understanding of the challenge, context and involved stakeholders.
Imagine & Ideate
Imagine futures and ideas, and make them tangible.
Reflect & Reframe
Focus on the insights gained from the different phases and re-evaluate to form a new frame.
The six principles
1. We start with a societal challenge
and embrace collaboration and co-creation between all people having influence on the challenge and those being affected.
2. We are all equal and in this together
We enable all stakeholders. There is no hierarchy, no paternalism, we strive for equality.
No discipline and role boundaries. We are responsible together.
3. We embrace multiple perspectives
Empathy is essential. We acknowledge perspectives affected by time (pasts, presents, futures), space cultures, and experiences.
4. We makes futures tangible
Tangible ideas become object of reflection, discussion, and action. They support having a shared language to work across positions and disciplines.
5. We stimulate moral imagination
We discuss, understand and anticipate the impacts of innovations in our society.
6. We have fun
It is a privilege and a joy to be an agent of change. Enjoy!

Open access toolbox

To foster connections between science and society, DesignLab serves as an experimental and innovative ecosystem where stakeholders meet, brainstorm and aim to find solutions for societal challenges. Therefore, DesignLab offers open access information, tools and templates in the Responsible Futuring toolbox.

News & must-reads

Collaborations

Photo: Melvin Tas | Frisse Focus

Transdisciplinary Master Insert 'Shaping Responsible Futures', hosted by DesignLab

Students from different programmes increase their knowledge and skills in the field of transdisciplinary work. In the space of six months, various themes are explored, i.e. transdisciplinary ways of working, high-level critical & conceptual thinking, participatory & creative problem solving and future scenario build. In 2022, the team received a prestigious award for educational innovation.

More information

Photo: Christine Ayo

DesignLab Research Fellows

The DesignLab Research Fellowship consists of over 70 researchers based at various faculties of the University of Twente, that value creativity and transdisciplinarity. They share DesignLab’s vision and want to use it as a platform for research. Projects encompass all kind of ideas and initiatives that have a link with the Responsible Futuring approach and its areas of expertise; Citizen Science and Transdisciplinary innovation, to create societal impact.

More information

Photo: Christine Ayo

Academic and non-academic partnerships

Are you seeking to:

✓ Involve multi-stakeholder perspectives in your project and collaborate with them?
✓ Include ethical perspectives in a concrete and tangible way, taking into account the various societal values at stake?
✓ Develop future scenarios and speculative artifacts that can help you further in your work?

and
✓ Do you work specifically in the context of health innovation, climate change and digital society?

Society, you and the crew

At DesignLab, the expertise and developments lie within the Responsible Futuring crew. The team consists of researchers, (senior and student) moderators, a community builder and project leaders. Together with various stakeholders within the quintuple helix, we put the approach into practice and enable meaningful collaborations. As a result, we make it possible to conduct (new) research, valorise, execute innovative projects and offer you the latest developments within the approach.

Collaborating with DesignLab means getting the know-how of Responsible Futuring and insights into the perspectives of academia, civil society, industry and government. It enables you to work on the challenges that we as society need to tackle, while keeping ethical implications into account.
Let’s work together!