We offer open and participatory events that showcase interdisciplinary work and impact and spark ideas, inspiration and debate.
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Join this Centre for Technomoral Futures Flagship Lecture event with award-winning author and philosopher, Professor C. Thi Nguyen, on technology’s role in shaping human values.
The intersecting, planetary-scale crises we face bring new urgency to the debate about the purpose of education. Climate catastrophe, widening inequalities, conflict, pathogen spillovers, new diseases, failures of governance and technology acceleration all challenge us to ask again what education might be, and what we need it to do.
Join us for the inaugural lecture of Professor Shannon Vallor.
Join this weekly reading group hosted by The Binks Hub and led by Dr Autumn Roesch-Marsh.
The Critical Data Studies Cluster at the Futures Institute invites you to join a morning coffee and natter about datafication and data-driven systems.
Part of the University of Edinburgh's Edinburgh Futures Conversations series.
Dr Kevin Guyan shares his work on queer approaches to the collection, analysis and presentation of data.
This event brings Gaza Sky Geeks in conversation with researchers at the University of Edinburgh to discuss how Palestine's digital economy can remain resilient in the current crisis.
Join this weekly reading group hosted by The Binks Hub and led by Dr Autumn Roesch-Marsh.
This workshop is for people who want to learn about how poetry might be used to support processes of change and activism.
This event will discuss topics such as the role of video games in shaping our world and human development, and the gamification of education.
This talk with Arturo Arriagada will analyse the daily routines and economic pressures faced by today's digital workers.
This workshop will generate material which will be collectively sung by the workshop participants at the event Entanglements: Studies in flowing, following, falling.
This 3-hour workshop will generate material which will be performed by the workshop participants at the event Entanglements: Studies in falling, flowing, following.
Join this weekly reading group hosted by The Binks Hub and led by Dr Autumn Roesch-Marsh.
This workshop is for people who want to learn about how poetry might be used to support processes of change and activism.
This event will entangle human and aquatic worlds, moving between freshwater and the deep ocean, learning through performance, video, music, poetry and song.
This discussion considers the role education has played in developing our technological landscape and how it can help work towards a fairer future.
Join this weekly reading group hosted by The Binks Hub and led by Dr Autumn Roesch-Marsh.
This workshop is for people who want to learn about how poetry might be used to support processes of change and activism.
Laura Cram, Professor of Neuropolitics and Director of the Neuropolitics Research Lab at the University of Edinburgh will be giving this year’s Schapiro Lecture for Government and Opposition.
Our Utopia Labs are ‘no-spaces’, places where everyone is welcome to join us in dreaming futures that inspire our experience of the present.
Our Utopia Labs are ‘no-spaces’, places where everyone is welcome to join us in dreaming futures that inspire our experience of the present.
A talk by danah boyd.
In this Technomoral Conversations panel, we will hear from leading voices from the Majority World on what they have learned from and about AI, and the issues and visions they would like to see taken up.
Our Autumn 2023 programme of events explored leadership in all its forms – from the seats of power to the front lines of activist movements and even in our own workplaces.
Watch recordings
Our Spring 2023 programme of events explored the interconnections of AI and data with humanity through conversations, performances, and workshops.
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Our Autumn 2022 programme featured more than 20 events exploring crisis, migration, displacement and equality coalescing around the theme of Climate Justice.
Watch recordings"The production and intellectual content of your recent events has been fantastic! Thank you for the opportunity to attend and learn. This is probably the best event I have been to all year."
Event attendee, Love Machine Spring 2023
"Really, really impressed with Futures Institute events. Properly impressive speakers, and seamless technical management. Thank you for keeping them hybrid/online – it's a really nice way to keep in touch!"
Event attendee, Love Machine Spring 2023
"Amazing! I hope that Utopia Lab can ring in every event season, the dream space that you curate and allow to flourish is an important and novel lens that Edinburgh Futures Institute offers partners, students, staff, researchers and anyone with an interest in collaborative thinking and doing."
Event attendee, Love Machine Spring 2023
Our public events seasons are co-created with people from across the University of Edinburgh. If you'd like to contribute ideas for the programme please contact the events team.
Call for proposals
Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) building, The University of Edinburgh, 1 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh, EH3 9EF
*Deliveries via West Entrance on Nightingale Way.
Email: efi@ed.ac.uk
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