About the project

Schedule 

  • February 28 – March 4, 2022 

Co-organizers

  • Chulalongkorn University 
  • The Thai National Commission for UNESCO  

Target

  • Academics/researchers, students, social/CSO practitioners, ASEAN policy makers, government officials, strategic partners, and the general public. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the vulnerability of the world that we live in. The pandemic reminds us that the fundamental needs of underserved communities in the world are yet to be fulfilled. As unprecedented challenges linger on, it has become increasingly evident that without gaining a collective resilience, we will never achieve a sustainable or just society.
               At such an unprecedented juncture, we cannot carry on with a business-as-usual approach. How can we promote understanding and practices to think and act beyond national interests? How can we make sense of these uncertainties and direct our efforts to build resilient global communities? Universities have a clear responsibility to nurture inclusive culture with respect for diversity. How can we instill these values among all learners and citizens at a time when the world is witnessing increasing conflicts, violence, and injustice?
               Futures Literacy is a discipline of anticipation that is essential for us all, every citizen. It is the ability to become aware of assumptions about the future, and mastering it allows us to view uncertainty as a resource, rather than an enemy of planning. It fosters agility of the mind, allowing us to embrace uncertainty and complexity. Being futures literate enables people to use the futures to innovate the present. For this reason, Futures Literacy has been presented as one of the four essential competencies for the realization of humanity’s aspirations in the 21st century(World Economic Forum, 2021).
               Chulalongkorn University community members are constantly seeking innovative solutions to serve society, collaborating with local and international communities and partners. Whether in teaching, research, or outreach, Chula addresses the needs of our time by utilizing its strengths, which are represented in its diverse disciplines, expertise, and initiatives. In the same vein, Chula Futures Literacy Week introduces Futures Literacy to our campus, local and international communities as a learning innovation that can empower us to face new challenges in this New Normal and create opportunities for design thinking via deep reflection among the participants. Through lectures, Futures Literacy Labs, and panel discussions, the week-long program is an invitation to each of us to work toward a future that is just and sustainable, reflecting on the Global Commons.  

Culminating event 

Culminating event 

          The international conference will be organized as a culminating event at the end of the Chula Futures Literacy Week. By engaging with multiple stakeholders, it aims to

               1) facilitate focused dialogue and action on Futures Literacy and civic engagement, activate meaningful discussion on regional governance of sustainability with justice and dignity at its core, and
               2) facilitate agenda-setting for future collaborative possibilities in Asia and beyond. 

          Crises brought about by the pandemic are causing us to question the meanings of knowledge, science, work, life, and humanity. This encourages us to contemplate and articulate how core values such as dignity and justice can be enhanced and how the promises of sustainability can be fulfilled. We must pay due attention to and incorporate the potentially far-reaching implications of the pandemic on our vision of sustainability, justice, and dignity, particularly regarding cross-cutting issues such as human security, the ethics of science and technology, and global governance.
          Disconnectedness is hampering our ability to address the complex challenges of our time. Unprecedented access to information and data, together with improved connectivity, can facilitate evidence-based actions and more dynamic, transparent, and accountable policy formation processes. Technological advancements can also create a range of alternative approaches that can contribute to building a dignified, just, and sustainable society. However, the opportunities also come with a set of complex risks and challenges. Increased access to information technology has led to a more disrupted society. What has been considered the “era of connectivity” has been compromised by the exclusion and division it generates. The “digital divide” has created and exacerbated disparities among people from different social backgrounds. The use of technology for the surveillance and accreditation of citizens by those with power is yet another concerning trend and needs to be carefully balanced with security needs and the proliferation of the digital economy.  

  • What challenges and opportunities has the COVID-19 pandemic provided (and/or will it provide) to communities in Asia, especially in terms of transformative learning within and across national borders?

  • In the light of Future Literacy initiatives, how do our experiences with the COVID-19-induced crises shape, or reshape our vision, practices, approaches, and strategies to achieve sustainability, justice, and dignity in Asia?

  • What is the role of knowledge actors, including universities and other educational institutions, in societal transformation, especially in the realm of cross-border learning and exchange? 

Futures Literacy  

FL is a capability. It is the skill that allows people to better understand the role that the future plays in what they see and do. People can become more skilled at ‘using-the-future’, more ‘futures literate’, because of two facts. One is that the future does not yet exist, it can only be imagined. Two is that humans have the ability to imagine. As a result, humans are able to learn to imagine the future for different reasons and in different ways. Thereby becoming more ‘futures literate’. 

FL is important because imagining the future is what generates hope and fear, sense-making and meaning. The futures we imagine drive our expectations, disappointments and willingness to invest or to change. Being ‘futures illiterate’ makes people much more vulnerable to fear and becoming attached to ‘unrealistic’ expectations – like we can stop the world changing. In today’s world, with the strength of our tools and our proximities and diversities, the conditions for peace cannot be created without people becoming more ‘futures literate’. 

In its role as a global laboratory of ideas UNESCO has been pioneering innovative action-learning and action-research into Futures Literacy. UNESCO is co-creating with people all around the world (see map on page 2 for examples) opportunities to explore locally rooted anticipatory assumptions – the frames people use to imagine tomorrow. These special, co-created Futures Literacy Laboratories have a proven track record in developing the capacity to ‘use-the-future’ for different reasons and using different methods. UNESCO recently co-published a major academic book with Routledge, entitled: Transforming the Future: Anticipation in the 21st Century. The book provides evidence that by engaging people in carefully co-created learning-by-doing processes people become more ‘futures literate’, ask new questions and open up new horizons for innovative actions.

Starting in 2012 UNESCO began shifting its foresight activities towards the development of Futures Literacy and the Discipline of Anticipation. This effort built on UNESCO’s decades of experience in fostering future studies and as a global laboratory of ideas where the latest advances in the theory and practice of using the future are discussed and prototyped. This approach to ‘using-the-future’ has now been applied on the ground and in close collaboration with local champions in over 20 countries (see: Transforming the Future: Anticipation in the 21st Century, 2018). The fruits of this work are now starting to take off. 8 new UNESCO Chairs have been established in the last few years and 10 more are in the pipeline. A special project is underway, called Imagining Africa’s Futures, which is prototype testing Futures Literacy Laboratories as major innovation in the development and dissemination of the capacity to use-the-future. 

Futures Literacy  

FL is a capability. It is the skill that allows people to better understand the role that the future plays in what they see and do. People can become more skilled at ‘using-the-future’, more ‘futures literate’, because of two facts. One is that the future does not yet exist, it can only be imagined. Two is that humans have the ability to imagine. As a result, humans are able to learn to imagine the future for different reasons and in different ways. Thereby becoming more ‘futures literate’. 

FL is important because imagining the future is what generates hope and fear, sense-making and meaning. The futures we imagine drive our expectations, disappointments and willingness to invest or to change. Being ‘futures illiterate’ makes people much more vulnerable to fear and becoming attached to ‘unrealistic’ expectations – like we can stop the world changing. In today’s world, with the strength of our tools and our proximities and diversities, the conditions for peace cannot be created without people becoming more ‘futures literate’. 

In its role as a global laboratory of ideas UNESCO has been pioneering innovative action-learning and action-research into Futures Literacy. UNESCO is co-creating with people all around the world (see map on page 2 for examples) opportunities to explore locally rooted anticipatory assumptions – the frames people use to imagine tomorrow. These special, co-created Futures Literacy Laboratories have a proven track record in developing the capacity to ‘use-the-future’ for different reasons and using different methods. UNESCO recently co-published a major academic book with Routledge, entitled: Transforming the Future: Anticipation in the 21st Century. The book provides evidence that by engaging people in carefully co-created learning-by-doing processes people become more ‘futures literate’, ask new questions and open up new horizons for innovative actions.

Starting in 2012 UNESCO began shifting its foresight activities towards the development of Futures Literacy and the Discipline of Anticipation. This effort built on UNESCO’s decades of experience in fostering future studies and as a global laboratory of ideas where the latest advances in the theory and practice of using the future are discussed and prototyped. This approach to ‘using-the-future’ has now been applied on the ground and in close collaboration with local champions in over 20 countries (see: Transforming the Future: Anticipation in the 21st Century, 2018). The fruits of this work are now starting to take off. 8 new UNESCO Chairs have been established in the last few years and 10 more are in the pipeline. A special project is underway, called Imagining Africa’s Futures, which is prototype testing Futures Literacy Laboratories as major innovation in the development and dissemination of the capacity to use-the-future.