Digital Futures is a cross-disciplinary research centre with the vision to solve societal challenges through digital transformation. It was established in 2020 by KTH, Stockholm University and RISE, based on significant long-term support of a Strategic Research Area by the Swedish Government. 

From January 2022, I’ll be part of the Executive Committee and have a special responsibility for the area of societal outreach and engagement. My aim is to bring together different actors from academia, the EdTech sector and the public sector to contribute to nurture conversations on digital transformations toward SDG 4: ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

Exciting!

The Swedish Research Council, (The Educational Sciences Program) has granted our reserach plan for organizing the 3 following Nordic Workshops 2022-2023:

The first workshop on concepts aims to engage critically with datafication as a social and cultural phenomenon. It seeks to provide a set of concepts to deconstruct current public discourses on future education related to AI and big data, and their emerging sociotechnical imaginaries. In short, we are interested in: Which concepts and notions support nuanced discussions about values reflected in emerging educational sociotechnical imaginaries?

Leader: Prof. Anders Buch, VIA University College, Aarhus,  Denmark. 

Take a look at our website and the keynote’s speakers coming to our first workshop!

The second workshop on interventions focuses on collecting narratives portraying sociotechnical imaginaries by amateur and expert writers with different backgrounds and professional profiles. Such imaginaries will contribute to the creation of alternative visions of learning and education in 2032. The question guiding this workshop is: How do we resist and/or promote narratives about the future of education in the Nordic countries? (For the power of literary imaginaries, see, for example, Lindberg, 2016). 

Leader: Prof. Ylva Lindberg, Jönköping University

The third workshop explores novel methods, beyond survey and case studies methodologies, by building on the concepts explored in the first workshop and the sociotechnical imaginaries fabricated in the Jönköping’s Literary Festival 2022. This workshop focuses on: Which non-paradigmatic methods help identify, reflect and challenge values and ethical concerns in emerging sociotechnical imaginaries?

Leader: Prof. Teresa Cerratto Pargman, Stockholm University