Three Creative Futures Methods for Imagining Life in a Post-Antibiotic World : Report on a Speculative Cross-Sector and Cross-Campus Conversation

Braun, Rebecca and Curry, Andrew and Gatherer, Derek and Kyne, Karena and Spiers, Emily (2020) Three Creative Futures Methods for Imagining Life in a Post-Antibiotic World : Report on a Speculative Cross-Sector and Cross-Campus Conversation. Working Paper. Institute for Social Futures, Lancaster University, Lancaster.

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Abstract

This report describes a day that was dedicated to thinking about post-antibiotic futures through trialling 3 different ‘Creative Futures’ methods with a group of participants from a diverse range of disciplinary backgrounds. The event was co-organised by Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) and the Institute for Social Futures (ISF) at Lancaster University, where it took place on 16 January 2020. The workshop was funded by DSTL’s Future Threat Understanding and Disruption (FTUD) Programme and was designed to allow exploratory interdisciplinary collaboration that might open up new ways of thinking and planning for all involved. Reading this report will give insight into: (1) the background science that makes living in a world where antibiotics are no longer effective a plausible future worthy of consideration within the FTUD Programme; (2) three novel Creative Futures methods that were used to tease out possible unforeseen social, political and ecological consequences of such an emergent environment and stimulate new kinds of crossdisciplinary exchange: the Consequences game, Narrative World Building, and combining Three Horizons with Verge; (3) key insights that participants gained from the day, including future possible development of both the topic at hand and the methods used to explore it.