Techniques of Futuring: A Mixed Classroom with Policymakers
Each year the Urban Futures Studio organises a Mixed Classroom about the imagination of sustainable futures. The ‘Mixed Classroom’ is an exciting new form of education in which students from different disciplines and national and local policymakers are part of one classroom, in which they learn from and with each other. The central premise of the course is that our images of the future determine how we act in the present.
Suit and helmet for overcrowded commuting (photo by Jikke de Gruijter)
The aim of this annual course is to give participants an understanding of the techniques developed for knowing and anticipating futures in view of the planetary crisis of the 21th century. Participation in this course offers students the possibility to gain hands-on experience in connecting ideas to action in collaboration with policymakers, on topics that are both scientifically innovative and societally urgent.
During the course, participants study and reflect on existing and new practices like scenario’s, back casting, design thinking and science fiction. Each course ends with an ‘intervention’ by students in a form that is most fitting to that year's theme. The previous closing sessions were the A Canon of Change external link, The Museum of the Linear Economy, Mobility Museum 2050, Coach for Conversation and the Uninvited Futuring Exhibition external link.
Dutch Higher Education price
The course ‘Techniques of Futuring: A Mixed Classroom’ has won one of the three Dutch Higher Education Premiums 2021. The Minster of Education Ingrid van Engelshoven will present the premiums of at least 500.000 euros on the 1st of March. For more information (Dutch): https://www.uu.nl/nieuws/team-mixed-classroom-wint-een-van-drie-hogeronderwijspremies-voor-wo
Involved in the following course(s)