Conference Paper: "Fostering Sustainability Through Futures Literacy: Case Studies from the SF4S Project"

This year's Futures Conference in Turku, Finland had 330 participants on the topic of the Futures of Technologies https://futuresconference2025.com/programme/. Amos Taylor (Finland Futures Research Centre, university of Turku) and Johanna Vallistu (Estonian Institute for Futures Studies)-  had the opportunity to represent the  SF4S project in a special session “Futures-oriented research and learning in the digital era” where their paper was titled: Fostering Sustainability Through Futures Literacy: Case Studies from the SF4S Project. The session had other similar presentations on curricula development utilising futures literacy, so there were lots of synergies in the discussion and questions afterward. The main aim of this presentation was to highlight the ranges of curricula design and experimentation - that bridged the needs of foresight and sustainability. Especially, the interpretation of the different uses of futures literacy was pinpointed as an education tool ( ie. the general and specific ways in which an approach to the future can be better utilised). The overall project activities through organisational co-creating foresight activities, to degree level education modules were mentioned, however here the focus was to introduce the vocational setting for curricula development made by which André Uhl & Ingo Kollosche– IZT - Institute for Futures Studies and Technology Assessment, (Germany) Ajda Fošner – GEA College,( Slovenia), Aive Karing – Estonian Design Centre, (Estonia)  and Daniel Kotsjuba – Estonian Academy of Arts, (Estonia). These often short and direct courses, often for entrepreneurs or SME’s -support enhanced professional capabilities and heightened sustainability awareness among participants.  Sustainability through futures literacy can be fostered, where in practice the outcomes were that Foresight methods enabled the participants to imagine news paths to foster sustainability in their organization. Roadmaps could help participants to plan such paths and integrate them in their organization strategy. Participants were able to connect different areas of sustainability for a holistic and forward-looking approach. 

This presentation has been invited for submission into the conference proceedings along with the slides. The SF4S members will write this up to be submitted to a journal in the special issue connected to the conference. 

In the audience there were 30+ conference attendees. Ppt can be found here https://seafile.utu.fi/f/ba74f941bdee404cbcc2/ 

And abstract can be found here: https://futuresconference2025.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/fc2025-book-of-abstracts-110625.pdf