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Futures Literacy Pedagogy | Interdisciplinary Symposium
Interdisciplinary Symposium: Futures Literacy Pedagogy
Enacting Future Minds – Educating for Futures | May 12–14, 2027 | PH NOE, Campus Baden
Under the patronage of the Austrian Commission for UNESCO
In the Anthropocene, where accelerating global changes demand new ways of thinking and acting, Futures Literacy emerges as a crucial competence for education. Moving beyond traditional approaches such as critical thinking or systems thinking and sustainability, this conference explores how educators and researchers across both school and higher education contexts can engage in participatory and anticipatory sense-making, tap the creative agency of the world, turn uncertainty into a resource, and learn from an emerging future. By embracing VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) dynamics and fostering action-oriented, purpose-driven innovation, we aim to co-create educational practices that empower learners to navigate and shape the futures ahead in a thriving manner.
Join us for an immersive interdisciplinary symposium to explore how education can become a transformative space for co-becoming with the world. Through interactive workshops, interdisciplinary dialogues, and collaborative experimentation, participants will discuss theoretical concepts and develop practical tools to integrate futures thinking into their teaching and research. This event invites educators, scholars, and practitioners to collectively reimagine learning and teaching as a dynamic process of engaging with the future—learning and teaching that is emergent, creative, and profoundly generative and turns education into a space for imagining and enacting new possibilities.
Keynotes
Keri Facer (University of Bristol): Crafting Futures Literacies: the potential and possibilities of working with time
As a new generation of teachers and academics begin creating futures literacy initiatives in schools and universities, Keri Facer will ask what we can learn from the nearly fifty-year history of trying to ‘teach the future’ in formal education. She will explore the tensions between a ‘disciplinary’ and a ‘craft’ approach, and the strengths and weaknesses of these two directions. Drawing on her own practice developing futures-oriented education and her research into time and expertise, Keri will make the case that educational and social transformation adequate to the world we are living in demands the development of a pluriversal, critical, situated temporal imagination. She will introduce the core concept of temporal justice and argue that developing the skills to work towards temporal justice is at the heart of the ethical imperative of futures-oriented education.
Vlad Glăveanu (Dublin City University: Creative Pedagogies for Futures and Possibilities Literacy
How can education prepare learners not simply to adapt to an uncertain future but to actively imagine and shape it? This talk introduces Possibilities Literacy as a core educational capability for the twenty-first century: the capacity to perceive, create, evaluate and enact possibilities in ways that are imaginative, responsible and collaborative. Drawing on research in creativity, imagination, possibility studies and educational psychology, I argue that creative pedagogies should move beyond teaching creative thinking as an individual skill toward cultivating learners’ engagement with uncertainty, constraints, multiple futures and collective agency. Rather than treating the future as something to predict, Possibilities Literacy invites learners to explore alternative trajectories, negotiate values and transform limitations into opportunities for action. Through examples from educational research and practice, I will outline key dimensions of possibilities literacy and present pedagogical approaches that foster inquiry, experimentation, reflection and co-creation. The talk will conclude by considering how educators can design learning environments that empower students not only to navigate change but also to become active authors of more desirable futures.
Target audiences and fields/disciplines:
This conference is designed as an interdisciplinary event, bringing together diverse perspectives to explore Futures Literacy Pedagogy. Contributions are welcome from the following disciplines/fields, but are not limited to:
- Educational sciences – Innovating learning and teaching Futures Literacy
- Cognitive science – Understanding how minds anticipate and engage with futures
- Creativity studies – Engaging in creative practices for futures thinking
- Possibilities studies – Exploring alternative futures and the creative potential in education
- Transformative learning – Taking learning one step further into worldviews, epistemic attitudes, and co-becoming with an unfolding world
- Cultural studies and semiotics — Negotiating meaning and imagining futures
- Arts and crafts – Fostering new possibilties and thinking beyond past patterns with culture and arts education
- Philosophy – Examining epistemological and ethical dimensions of futures thinking
- Futures studies – Exploring how to shape a thriving future in education
- Anthropology – Investigating cultural perspectives on the future and co-becoming
- Design and innovation studies – Developing future-oriented, action- and future-driven methodologies for education
- Complex systems and sustainability studies – Addressing uncertainty and global challenges in education
- Curriculum development – Designing curricula encompassing futures literacy in education
- Human-technology relations: Artificial Intelligence and digital technologies – Exploring the role of technology in shaping future minds in education
Symposium Objectives:
- Developing a deep understanding of Futures Literacy and its relevance in teaching and learning.
- Exploring innovative methodologies to anticipate and shape future challenges in education.
- Fostering collaboration between educators and researchers to address global educational needs in Futures Literacy Pedagogy.
Expected Outcome:
- Enhanced ability to think critically and creatively about Futures Literacy Pedagogy and the future of education in the Anthropocene.
- Practical strategies for incorporating Futures Literacy into curricula and research.
- Broadening the network of like-minded educators and researchers committed to future-ready education.
Target Group:
- Teachers in all disciplines interested in innovative pedagogical approaches.
- Educational researchers focusing on Futures Literacy and future-oriented studies.
- Policy advisors and education professionals aiming to enhance systemic preparedness.
How to Apply:
Please submit your abstract (300-400 words), structured in terms of background, methods, results, and conclusion, a short bio (affiliation, focus of research) should be added. Do not include tables or figures. You are welcome to offer a paper or a workshop, onsite and online. Please send your abstract to unesco(at)ph-noe.ac.at by 30 September 2026.
Participants are invited to use Erasmus staff mobility to cover travel costs.
Don’t miss this opportunity to shape the futures of teacher education!
Carmen Sippl, Karin Tengler & Rita Krebs
UNESCO Chair in Learning and Teaching Futures Literacy in the Anthropocene
University College of Teacher Education Lower Austria
Mühlgasse 67 in A–2500 Baden near Vienna | Austria
unesco(at)ph-noe.ac.at
https://www.ph-noe.ac.at/unesco-chair
Under the patronage of the Austrian Commission for UNESCO
