Collaborations For Future – Open call for designers
In order to take action on the climate challenges we face, the creative sector needs to collaborate more closely with climate researchers. This is not about what scientists and designers can work on, but how they can collaborate more effectively and sustainably to inform and imagine the urgent transformations our society needs. How can we imagine, develop, test and support collaboration forms that can enable this?
Foundation We Are, NIOZ, KNMI, Social Design Showdown, PBL, University Utrecht, TU/e and Pakhuis de Zwijger are proud to announce the launch of Collaborations for Future – a new incubator program bringing together design and climate science. The aim of the program is to create innovative commissioning models, methodologies, tools, and structures that enable creative professionals to collaborate effectively with climate scientists, ultimately addressing the urgent challenges of climate change.
On July 18 2023 Foundation We Are announced an open call for designers to participate in the Collaborations for Future program. Ten Designers will be selected to work together with ten climate scientists from the collaborating research institutes. Together, they will develop methods, experiments, campaigns, or other creative outcomes that can address different climate challenges.
Foundation We Are will set up a research track complimentary to the 10 1-on-1 collaborations. Its aim is to facilitate interdisciplinary exchanges and to develop insights and tools that can be implemented by climate institutes, ministries and other (semi-)public institutions to collaborate with the creative sector in tackling societal challenges.
Collaborations for Future will run for a period of 18 months from June 2023 until November 2024. The program will conclude with a symposium co-hosted by Pakhuis de Zwijger and Foundation We Are, and an exhibition during Dutch Design Week 2024, hosted at the headquarters of Foundation We Are. The individual collaborations between designers and scientists will take place from October 2023 to July 2024. Throughout this period a public event series of cross-disciplinary events on climate change will take place. This event series invites professionals from other domains such as journalism, psychology and film to contribute their perspective and experiences of making sense of climate change.
Collaborations for Future is one of the 17 projects made possible in part by the Innovation Labs programme, which gives an impulse to new resilience in the cultural and creative sector. This program is carried out by the Creative Industries Fund NL and CLICKNL on behalf of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.