Collaborations for Future

How can we collaborate between disciplines effectively on societal challenges?

Collaborations for Future develops innovative methods and models to enable unexpected collaborations between designers and climate scientists on global and local climate challenges. Current wicked, complex and networked problems need a collaborative and dynamic approach. Moving away from pre-defined outcomes and roles creates room for professionals of all disciplines to critically reflect on what their professional position is in relation to climate change. That is unquestionably the biggest challenge of our time – how will each of us take a position and act towards climate change? What future will we build together? No single individual has the answer, and yet all of us do.

With Collaborations for Future, Foundation We Are developed a collaborative set up, allowing designers to connect on a personal level with climate scientists so that they may address aspects of the climate challenge on a human scale within their own collaboration. In this way they are facilitating organizations that work on climate challenges to start embedding design practices within scientific research and translate it towards new audiences or movements.

A collaboration laboratory to understand how design can work with other disciplines.

In the collaboration laboratory, 10 designers and 10 climate scientists paired up to experiment and explore how they could collaboratively address themes such as melting ice caps and climate-neutral institutions. The aim was to understand what happens when a designer and scientist work together: what collaboration forms emerge, what themes do they decide to work on, and what interventions or projects do they pursue?

Some partnerships resulted in new campaigns and concepts targeting global climate challenges and enhancing design-science collaboration, while others focused on Dutch institutions and the individual practices of scientists. One notable pair, Merel Witteman and Roderik van de Wal, started a speculative sea-level neutral ice cream brand. The world's first sea-level neutral ice cream brand will be introduced during Dutch Design Week 2024.

Another collaboration took a completely different turn: Frank Selten and Karl Mubarak have been working on why Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) is not climate neutral. Their project is to launch an employee-led initiative aimed at achieving carbon neutrality within KNMI.

A new guide on how to collaborate between sectors!

While the designers focused on their individual collaborations and projects, Foundation We Are analyzed these partnerships and developed a new design handbook on collaboration which will be launched during Dutch Design Week. The research team of We Are explored what makes a successful collaboration, examining different ways to collaborate—whether within a traditional client relationship or more collaborative partnership models.

Within the handbook they defined specific roles, settings, and scenarios based on experiences within Foundation We Are and the Collaborations for Future Laboratory. The book addressed how to work together in small teams and identified the conditions needed for fruitful and sustainable interdisciplinary partnerships. Factors such as thematic matches or practice similarities significantly influence collaboration success. This knowledge has been synthesized into the new book of We Are. In this book can find the knowledge, tools and collaboration models that Foundation We Are uses to initiate new projects and advise organizations interested in partnering with designers or forming interdisciplinary teams on global issues.