Envisioning societal change
What?
This part of the social innovation process involves imagining what an alternative future might look like beyond today’s established order. It involves envisioning the society of the future, if we are allowed to think freely. Here, it is important to create new and alternative visions of the future that can serve as a guide for achieving social change.
Why?
To create an equitable, inclusive, and socially sustainable world, to improve society, and to find innovative solutions to complex societal challenges, we need to be able to envision different alternative scenarios—sometimes radical visions of the future. It’s easy to get stuck in a rut, confined by established frameworks, rules, and the status quo—by what already exists and the conditions we currently face.
According to some theories, dreams help us cope better with difficult events in life, because in our dreams we simulate threatening situations.
How?
To envision social change, we need to break free from our ingrained ways of thinking, our habitual view of the world, and the established frameworks and routines, and open up our imagination. The best way to do this is by honing our creative abilities and daring to think outside the box. This takes courage!
It is essential to be visionary and to dream big and freely.
It is important to avoid stereotypical visions of the future and to challenge limiting norms and assumptions within ourselves, our organization, and society at large.
Another key aspect is challenging existing power dynamics, systems, and social structures by connecting structures, systems, processes, and actors in new ways.
Last but not least, we need to broaden our perspective and look at the bigger picture in order to bring about systemic change and try out ideas that we might think are unrealistic—ideas that might even sound ridiculous, or at least impossible. But it is precisely in those seemingly impossible ideas that we may find the solution.
Guiding questions
- What would a society look like if the social challenge we want to address no longer existed?
- How can we think beyond our own and others’ established perspectives and ways of working?
- How can we envision and communicate an alternative future?
- Are the horizontal principles of gender equality, accessibility, and non-discrimination being used to envision social change?
Understand societal challenge
Envisioning societal change
Mobilise
Develop and test
Realise and disseminate
Create value
The social innovation process
The social innovation process
Methods and tools
Here you will find a selection of methods and tools that illustrate the element “Envisioning Social Change.” Some of these are also excellent tools to use in your innovation process. They have been selected because they work in various contexts and in different parts of the world. Many of them promote innovative thinking, shifts in perspective, inclusion, and co-creation.
Please let us know if you have any other suggestions that you think might work!
Example
Here, we’ve gathered inspiring examples of social innovations that, in various ways, help us envision and shape new possibilities for the society of the future.
Read, listen, and watch
The tips below have been selected to deepen your understanding of the element “Envisioning Social Change.” They are intended to provide practical guidance for designing and implementing innovative initiatives. Hopefully, these tips can also serve as a lens through which to reflect on “how we’ve always done things,” paving the way for further social innovations.
Most of the tips are freely available via the links provided.
