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Institute for Social Futures

Welcome

Thinking futures is now widespread, fateful and problematic. Yet much futures research neglects the insights that social science, the arts and humanities, can offer. Lancaster’s Institute for Social Futures works innovatively across disciplinary boundaries linking science, social science and humanities to examine what futures might develop within key domains of human/material activity.

Latest News and Events

Artist impression of Eden Project North

Eden Project North receives planning approval

Lancaster University has welcomed the latest important milestone for Eden Project North after the scheme received planning permission at a meeting of the Lancaster City Council planning committee.
The image on the left shows essay award winner Nicola Carter, of Lancaster. Centre image shows event organiser and host Professor Charlie Gere with some of the award winners Rose Proudfoot, J R Carpenter and Jane Burn (poetry award winner) with Karen Lloyd. Image on the right shows organiser and writer in residence at Lancaster University’s Future Places Centre Karen Lloyd speaking about the awards. Pictures by: Henry Iddon Photography + Film + Words

Capturing the natural world differently - Future Places awards announced

The winners of a new prize, which called for essays and poems that illustrate how literature can be a revelatory and imaginative force to help us see the natural world – and our place in it – differently, have just been announced.
Ancient Greek Armour

Emily Spiers speaks about speculative futures on the Visualising War Podcast

In this episode of the podcast series, Alice König, Principal Investigator of the Visualising War project at St Andrews, talks to Dr Emily Spiers, who is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Futures and German in the Department of Languages and Cultures at Lancaster University; Dr Will Slocombe, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Liverpool and specialist in Science Fiction; and Lt Col Matthew Brown, Chief of Future Concepts and Strategy with the RAF (on loan from the US Air Force).
We are hiring sign

Theme Lead Opportunities with the Institute for Social Futures

The Institute for Social Futures is seeking to appoint theme leads to two of its four core areas of research: 

Material and Digital Futures

Cultural and Creative Futures

We are also seeking a co-lead (with current theme lead Paul Young) for the Environmental Social Futures theme.
Image illustrating how the depletion of the ozone layer might have looked withoutthe Montreal Protocol

Scientists reveal how landmark CFC ban gave planet fighting chance against global warming

Without the global CFC ban we would already be facing the reality of a ‘scorched earth’, according to researchers measuring the impact of the Montreal Protocol.

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