We collaborate with a broad range of organisations to address complex challenges and make positive impact.
We can help you to frame and understand the challenges facing your sector, organisation, or practice, to explore new ways of thinking and working, to unlock value in your data, and to enable transformational, sustainable, and ethical change. We support challenge-led, interdisciplinary, co-creative and data-driven innovation.
DOUGLAS GRAHAM [Director of Business Engagement & Partnerships]
on the value of collaborating with EFI
Something that’s central to the vision of the Futures Institute is to be challenge-focused and to collaborate and co-create with partners across different sectors around complex challenges. And the work of our team is to make that connection and collaboration happen. We do that by developing deep expertise in some key sectors, understanding their innovation landscapes and the challenges and needs and opportunities presented by organizations in the sectors.
Our data-driven innovation program gives us a particularly deep focus on four sectors that are vital to our local and national economy: financial services and fintech, public services, creative industries and tourism, festivals and travel. But we work with organizations from almost any sector if they’re interested in exploring how they can innovate and collaborate around complex challenges. We’d encourage businesses who are interested in that to get in touch.
We can help connect them with our student talent or with other organizations looking at similar challenges from different perspectives. We can provide access to academic expertise and learning opportunities within the university, and we can also provide a lot of practical support on the process of exploring challenges and co-creating around futures in complex multi-stakeholder environments.
Our collaboration opportunities are designed to bring academic and industry expertise together to develop innovation capacity and create solutions.
Shaping the future through world-leading, interdisciplinary research, innovation, and knowledge creation.
We are part of a world-leading, research-intensive university, ranked 4th in the UK for research power (Times Higher Education’s REF power ratings). People from across the University of Edinburgh drive everything we do and bring knowledge, insight, ethical practice, and disciplinary expertise to our challenge-led and interdisciplinary approach.
Get inside the minds of some of the leading thinkers navigating routes to better futures at Edinburgh Futures Institute.
Latest thinking
A 4-Principle Approach for strengthening relationships and working differently
Edinburgh Futures Institute is one of six Data Driven Innovation hubs at the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University.
We are part of a regional power-house for collaboration and data innovation with industry partners. With expertise and facilities to help key sectors become more innovative through data, we offer specialist innovation services – delivering new value, outcomes, and transformations for people, communities, organisations, and sectors.
We offer custom designed executive education to meet specific needs for teams and organisations. Our executive education and professional development courses are designed to challenge, inspire, and transform your thinking.
We also offer 13 postgraduate degree programmes which have been specifically designed to support interdisciplinary, sustainable, ethical co-creation and data-driven innovation across multiple fields.
Investing in the next generation to help tackle the complexities of our future world.
The future workplace is interdisciplinary, multi-modal, and challenge-led. Our students graduate with core data skills, knowledge of data ethics, the ability to interrogate issues of global scope and complexity, and with the creative and entrepreneurial mind-set to problem-solve that is vital for building better futures.
We have lots of exciting opportunities to connect our diverse and talented students with a range of professional and sector-specific experience.
We are experts, thinkers, dreamers; united in engaging and innovating with individuals and organisations to navigate complex challenges.
International
EFI Associates
Our associates bring insight, capability and connections to our challenge-led portfolio of activities and initiatives. They provide a wealth of multi-disciplinary expertise, experience and skill across diverse backgrounds.
Sectors in focus
“CodeBase are big believers in co-locating people from different backgrounds, who are all trying to explore, create new things, and scale their first moments of product market fit. We think this is the best way to build successful communities.
That’s why we’re excited to be part of Edinburgh Futures Institute; it’s the perfect environment to forge new connections and widen networks – and indeed network effects.”
Steven Drost, CSO, CodeBase
Become a member
New tenancy and membership opportunities coming 2024/25.
We can create better futures
We work with individuals, businesses, and organisations across public, private, and third sectors. While much of our work focuses on our four key sectors, we are open to working with people and organisations from any sector.
We’d love to discuss potential collaborations and opportunities and how we can innovate together.
