Futures Conference 2023 "Empowering Futures – Long-term Governance, Democracy and Futures Research" will be organised on 14−16 June 2023 in Turku, Finland and online. The Call for Papers, Posters and Workshops is now open – Welcome!
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Visions make it possible to create a future that is different from the present although its seeds are in the present.
– Eleonora Masini (2006)
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There is an urgent need for long-term futures thinking in order to sustain possibilities for alternative and creative solutions to complex crises and empower futures. For the next Futures Conference, we will gather in Turku to discuss about the futures of democracy, trust, power and sustainability, which are tightly connected to these crises.
These topical issues will be discussed in an interdisciplinary manner, on how we see futures and how futures studies can empower people, societies, and organisations for creating more just and sustainable futures. The conference will elaborate upon general sustainability and resilience challenges in the current turbulent situation of world politics.
The understanding of systemic complexity and wide phenomena, as well as problems and issues such as climate change, international security, policymaking, well-being, and technological innovations, can be seen as the focus of futures studies. Research on these topics and creating solutions for them are carried out in inter- and transdisciplinary approaches within the field. Furthermore, it is a shared understanding and emphasis that those actions we took in the past and those we take in the present shape the future. In addition, how we look at the future, shapes our actions in the present.
We invite researchers, practitioners and alike from universities, research institutes, companies, governmental and non-governmental organisations to submit your abstracts (max. 300 words) no later than 31 January 2023 via webropol: https://ty.fi/futures2023-cfp
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The Futures Conference 2023 will focus on questions such as:
- How can the scientific community contribute to empowering futures? What and whose futures are being empowered, and by whom?
- What impacts climate change, security threats and wars could have on democracy?
- How can futures research help enable and empower just transitions, and how may just transitions impact our futures?
- What are the scientific contributions in identifying risks and opportunities and in building sustainable futures?
- How can current and potential social gaps be fulfilled?
- How to study complex futures?
- What kinds of new theoretical and methodological contributions futures research can establish?
We welcome you to share your latest research results, findings and thoughts on these key topics:
- Futures of democracy: states and transnational organisations
- Long-term governance and actions in the present
- Creative empowerment for social change
- Impacts, risks and discontinuities: new imaginations and imaginaries
- Anti-oppressive practices in academia and futures research: antiracism, feminism, equal rights and empowerment of the oppressed
- Empowerment through inclusion
- Foresight and futures research for just transitions
- Sustainability and future generations
- Complexity and systems thinking
- Participatory approaches in futures research
- Methodological development of futures studies
The conference in a hybrid mode
The Futures Conference 2023 will be organised in hybrid mode. Conference days Wednesday 14 and Thursday 15 of June 2023 will be held on-site in Turku and partly online. Friday 15 of June will be held exclusively in virtual mode. We encourage in-person attendance, but also welcome virtual participation for both authors and attendees.
The conference will create a cross-disciplinary science platform where participants can meet, share, and discuss new ideas concerning futures, democracy, trust and responsibility.
The program will consist of keynote lectures, parallel sessions, participatory workshops and a chaired poster session. The conference will aim to generate multidisciplinary, stimulating and critical discussions that promote networking between people interested in futures issues from different backgrounds and perspectives.
Important dates
- Call for papers available: 11 November 2022
- Deadline for the abstracts: 31 January 2023
- Notification of acceptance: 28 February 2023
Conference organisers
‘Empowering Futures’ is the 23rd international Futures Conference of the Finland Futures Research Centre and Finland Futures Academy, University of Turku, Finland.
Contact the Conference Secretariat via futuresconference@utu.fi