We offer open and participatory events that showcase interdisciplinary work and impact and spark ideas, inspiration and debate.
Get event updates from Edinburgh Futures Institute.
What role should the public have in shaping Artificial Intelligence (AI)? Should the public have a voice in how AI is being developed and used, and how it’s governed and regulated? And how might a diverse cross section of the public be involved in the decisions made by big tech, regulatory bodies, and local and national government?
Join this one-day symposium on 'Artificial Intelligence as the Broken Machine' with invited keynote speaker Prof. Louise Amoore.
Join the Centre for Data, Culture & Society for their 5-day Summer School.
This event will showcase the potential for AI in the creative industries.
TikTok: Work, Time, and Play in a Platform Economy brings together papers that analyse emerging digital visual culture(s) and aesthetics through critical platform analyses.
This conference will share new insights and discuss the economic issues related to the application of technology within finance in a rapidly evolving regulatory landscape.
Join us to celebrate publication of Shannon Vallor's latest work The AI Mirror, one of the most important books we can read right now to find our way through the AI-hype headlines and harness its power to reinvigorate our sense of human agency and possibility.
Join us to explore the future of sustainable technology through design, engineering, and finance.
Hear about some of the latest research and engagement projects led by the Digital Cultural Heritage Cluster members, make new connections and get inspired.
An exciting day of cutting-edge creative tech keynotes, demos, and panels, with workshops and a closing reception with an interactive performance!
Our panel of artists, curators, and researchers explores how data-driven art raises new ethical provocations for curation and exhibition.
Join us to explore the Citizens Data Agency, a fictional service provider proposing five speculative data support services.
Anthropic’s workshops aim to show the Fringe community how AI assistants can help with burdensome tasks, and to hear your feedback as we all shape the future of this technology together.
Part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, this Future Tense event features Margaret Atwood, Canadian novelist, poet, and literary critic.
Part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, this workshop will get you thinking about how the future can inspire and influence our present.
Part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, two fascinating technology writers reveal the disorientating extent to which we are already governed by AI and complex systems.
Part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, this event invites writers and readers to ask: who truly benefits from the current AI explosion?
Part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, this writing workshop explores how poetry can be a portal for our memories of the old Royal Infirmary.
Part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, join Shetland-born author James Crawford as he talks about his latest work, Wild History: Journeys into Lost Scotland.
Part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, hear stories capturing the memories and experiences of the Edinburgh Futures Institute building in its previous life as a hospital.
From their personal knowledge, our conversationalists will discuss the success of the original Edinburgh Conversations in the 1980s, and how in the context of the current global situation, the approach might be replicated.
What is the relationship between the digital and the museum? This question is at the heart of this 2-day conference.
Speculative Futures Central Scotland is delighted to invite you to an in-person evening event about Futures Boardgames.
Fintech Scotland Festival will take place between 25 September 2024 and 04 October 2024 across Scotland.
Hear from experts on these and a range of other issues around the complex interplay between artificial intelligence, data and democracy.
Join this weekly reading group hosted by The Binks Hub and led by Dr Autumn Roesch-Marsh.
Explore the Edinburgh Futures Institute building on Doors Open Days 2024! See exhibitions, meet staff and students and take part in a range of exciting hands-on drop-in activities suitable for all ages.
Explore the Edinburgh Futures Institute building on Doors Open Days 2024! See exhibitions, meet staff and students and take part in a range of exciting hands-on drop-in activities suitable for all ages.
Our Autumn 2024 programme of events explored the future of education through panel discussions, poetry readings, live music and performance, and deep intellectual debate and discussion.
Watch recordings
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.
Watch recordings
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
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336, VAT Registration Number GB 592 9507 00, and is acknowledged by the UK authorities as a “Recognised body” which has been granted degree awarding powers.
Unless explicitly stated otherwise, all material is copyright © The University of Edinburgh 2021.
