UNESCO CHAIR ON SOCIOCULTURAL ANTICIPATION AND

RESILIENCE

AIM

The UNESCO Chair on Sociocultural Anticipation and Resilience seeks to develop and strengthen anticipatory skills and competences through action-research and learning-through-practice methodologies, that are aimed at enhancing learning and information in decision-making to facilitate change processes from a futures perspective.

THEORETICAL-METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH

Our beliefs about the future – the way we imagine the future – is directly related to the way we perceive the present, and it affects – as inputs that ‘inform’ – the process of decision making. The way in which we use the future is a key element during processes of learning, innovation, transformation and expansion of the capacities for freedom (Amartya Sen).

The specific meta-framing focus adopted is what UNESCO has called “Futures Literacy”, or the capacity of using the future. This is an inter and transdisciplinary approach, that adopts complex thinking frameworks and anticipatory systems theory, and which focuses on cognitive, emotional and action processes, linked to learning, creativity, change and decision making.
The objective is to generate knowledge, skills and abilities to orient us in ambiguous, uncertain, transformative and complex environments, expanding the alternatives of choice, and accompanying the conditions of change and creating new conditions for change.

We work with active learning pedagogies (through practice) based on design thinking and collective intelligence (co-creation), to reach deep learning skills and competences, stimulating reflexivity, creativity, self-knowledge, autonomy, empathy, and resilience.

The methodology (Futures Literacy Laboratories) is the result of years of research by an international team led by UNESCO. From this framework, a variety of approaches and techniques are articulated, both from the field of Futures Studies and well as specific knowledge from disciplinary fields that encompass phenomena, themes and problems related to our work.

AREAS OF WORK

Some of areas we work on are:

The Future of Work
Education and Learning
Creative Economy
Circular Economy
New Technology-Human Interactions
Adaptive and Anticipatory Governance
New Leadership Modes
Climate change
Anticipation in Art and Heritage
Gender and Identities

PACTICAL APPLICATIONS

Some practical applications include:

The design and facilitation of learning, innovation and transformation processes for organizations, institutions and communities of practice working at the individual and collective level, both in public and private spheres with emphasis on those where they interact.
Training in formal educational spaces as transversal training in all levels of education, including management.
Information and knowledge generation using action-research methodologies in co-creation processes based on collective intelligence that integrate the future for analysis and reflection.

INTERNATIONAL NETWORKS THE CHAIR IS PART OF

Millennium Project Planning Committee, Global Futures Studies @Research
Ibero-American Prospective Network– RIBER
Teach The Future Program in Uruguay
Global Network of UNESCO Chairs on Anticipation and Futures Literacy

MEMBERS OF THE CHAIR’S INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATORY

Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Monterrey, Mexico
Mayor of Tamaulipas, Tamaulipas, Mexico
Unifranz University, Santa Cruz, Bolivia
Ignacy Sachs Chair, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, SP, Brazil
University of Externado, Bogotá, Colombia
University of Lincoln, Lincoln, United Kingdom
Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen, The Netherlands
University of Turku, UNESCO Chair in Learning Society and Futures of Education, Finland
Center for Climate Science and Resilience (CR)2, University of Chile, Chile
Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden
Università degli Studi di Trento, UNESCO Chair in Anticipation, Italy
Forth/Praxi, Foundation for Research and Technology, Greece
Latin American Center for Globalization and Prospective, CELGYP, Argentina
University of Buenos Aires, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Argentina