Abstract
While established futures thinking toolkits, such as the UK’s Futures Toolkit and Singapores Scenario Planning Plus, support policy-making and expert facilitation, few address futures thinking within interdisciplinary education and industry-academia collaboration. To bridge this gap, the Taiwan Design Research Institute developed the Futures Scenario Exploration Toolkit, which combines futures triangle with narrative scenario building to guide diverse groups to imagine and design multiple futures. This study presents a toolkit design, pilot application in the future participatory workshop, and evaluation conducted during the YODEX Industry–Academia Cooperation Programme. A post-workshop survey assessed perceived changes in Futures Consciousness across five dimensions – Time perspective, Agency beliefs, Openness to alternatives, System perception, and Concern for others. The participants showed the highest level of agreement with the enhancement of Openness to alternatives, specifically during the scenario design process, as evidenced by the co-created scenario. This study highlights the toolkit’s educational value, and provides practical insights for refining futures thinking toolkits that are engaging and adaptable for industry-academia cooperation.
Keywords
Futures Thinking; Futures Scenario Exploration Toolkit; Future Participatory Workshop; Futures Consciousness; Industry-Academia Cooperation
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.558
Citation
Huang, L., Hsueh, Y.T.,and Lei, S.T.(2025) Empowering Industry-Academia Collaboration with The Futures Scenario Exploration Toolkit, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.558
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 12 - Design Education
Empowering Industry-Academia Collaboration with The Futures Scenario Exploration Toolkit
While established futures thinking toolkits, such as the UK’s Futures Toolkit and Singapores Scenario Planning Plus, support policy-making and expert facilitation, few address futures thinking within interdisciplinary education and industry-academia collaboration. To bridge this gap, the Taiwan Design Research Institute developed the Futures Scenario Exploration Toolkit, which combines futures triangle with narrative scenario building to guide diverse groups to imagine and design multiple futures. This study presents a toolkit design, pilot application in the future participatory workshop, and evaluation conducted during the YODEX Industry–Academia Cooperation Programme. A post-workshop survey assessed perceived changes in Futures Consciousness across five dimensions – Time perspective, Agency beliefs, Openness to alternatives, System perception, and Concern for others. The participants showed the highest level of agreement with the enhancement of Openness to alternatives, specifically during the scenario design process, as evidenced by the co-created scenario. This study highlights the toolkit’s educational value, and provides practical insights for refining futures thinking toolkits that are engaging and adaptable for industry-academia cooperation.