Future Labs
Foresight innovation and paradigm shift
In the current climate of high uncertainty and paradigm shift, all organizations, large or small, need to address their future to better hold it, prepare for it, explore their risks and potentials, innovate, mobilize and project themselves serenely.
The “art of the future” is also a rapidly evolving field, in particular through the contribution of design, and LIID searches to be at the forefront of foresight innovation with exploratory methods that are at the same time lighter, better targeted and meshed, in order to bring reflection closer to action. The research process should be well “incubated”, and in tune with your teams’ and organizational culture, to stimulate a “prospective empowerment” allowing innovation, meaning and commitment.
This also implies a “prospective pedagogy” present in all our future labs where we notably highlight the process of the two major digital and environmental transitions that impact all areas today.
Depending on the context and chosen objectives, our future labs can mix many formats and modules:
conferences, masterclasses, workshops, events, publications, collaborative trend books, studies, inspirational scenarios (several possible methods), tailor-made research mapping and method, futurescapes, collaborative research device, local investigation, image research, digital platform, academic collaborations, design fiction experimentation, stories, artistic project, etc.
Depending on research prisms and expected impacts (internal and / or external), we combine our foresight and creative expertise with that of complementary agencies or partners (to be chosen together), making it possible to optimize the downstream impacts and the amplification (scale- up) of the foresight research carried out.
Future and resilience of organizations
We like to work with very diverse organizations, companies, start-ups, schools, universities, think-tanks, third places, cultural places, cities, public administrations, collectives, platforms, etc. and which means that we also search into your organizational culture, model and singularity, for relevant levers of future projection.
Our foresight content, workshops and future labs include a reflection on economic and organizational evolutions. Those of value models and sources, of technologies and AI impacts, of work, innovation, sustainability and consumption cultures,…
…. and of imaginaries that underpin them, which all take part ultimately in both organizational and societal resilience and prosperity.
In this regard, Raphaële Bidault-Waddington is a member of the New Club of Paris, an international network of intangible economics and innovation policy experts.
Our work and future labs also include a reflection on territorial transformations so decisive of the environmental transition. [see all our URBAN LABs]
A tailor-made future lab in your organization? Possible prisms and objectives:
INNOVATION: Guide, give meaning, better target and amplify your innovation
PURPOSE: Rethink or even disrupt your strategy, offer, mission, vision or raison d’être
COMMUNICATION: Design, give consistency and enrich your brand-content
THOUGHT-LEADERSHIP: Consolidate, develop and install a visionary voice
TRAINING: Train and update mindsets on transitions and their implications
INCENTIVE: Mobilize, embark internally, and shift looks toward the future
TRANSFORMATION: Gear your transformation along foresight research
ECOSYSTEM: Federate and / or mobilize stakeholders around future challenges.
OUR OFFERS
FORESIGHT CONTENTS
Foresight research framing or mapping
Weak signals scanning and analysis
Trends and systemic transformation study
Pedagogy on transitions future implications
Future literacy and pedagogy
Inspirational strategic future scenarios
Image and inspirational research
Design fiction and disruptive futures
THEMATIC WORKSHOPS
Explore collectively the future of a domain
Train and federate around future challenges
Capture future risks and opportunities
Develop a common culture and inspiration
Co-design futures scenarios
Co-design future strategies
Co-design innovative future project
IMPACTFUL FUTURE LAB DESIGN
Context-wise methodological innovation
Local challenges and prospective levers inquiry
Choice of relevant formats and agenda
Internal and external impacts optimization
Partnership strategy
Academic or artistic collaborations
FUTURE LABS
LIID R&D LABs
IHEST (Institut de Hautes Etudes en Sciences et Technologies)
IHEST (Institute for Higher Studies in Sciences and Technologies, Ministry of Research and Higher Education)
Series of thematic workshops and research groups, including the casting and invitation of guest academic and professional experts.
Themes: future of factories and fabrication, future of nuclear energy, future of economy and sustainability, future fashion and creative industries soft-power.
Peclers Future Trends
Global and Societal Future Trend Studies
Future trend research and editing for the FUTUR(S) book (professional and global publication distributed on five continents) based on a weak-signal method, and presenting a panorama of societal transformation at a 5 years horizon. Topics: identity codes and societal models, well-being, environment, collaborative economy revolution, cultural globalization and decolonization, relation to time and space, quest for meaning and transcendence, new frontiers of science and technologies, etc.
Bouygues Real Estate
Series of future studies
Series of future trends books written and edited with Peclers on the future of cities (ecology, mobility, well-being, technology, citizen life, creative and economic fertility, inclusion, branding and attractiveness, collective past and future imaginaries, etc.), of territorial and urban resilience (new sustainable development school declined in 4 dimensions: ecological, inclusive, collaborative and cultural), and of social, societal and urban innovations. Curation, casting and moderation of a round-table on the mobilization and power of new social and urban innovation networks.
Citynove / Galeries Lafayette Group
Cultural, collaborative and urban Innovation lab
Insights on urban innovation and resilience. Collaborative research to amplify the cultural and urban innovation of the group (via its real-estate branch and the Lafayette Anticipation Foundation). Topics: historical renovation, art’s contribution, experience and space design, retail, place-making, sustainability, etc.
Cape & Cape (start-up)
Multi-cultural brand creation lab
Research on the rise of new African and Afro-European imaginaries to create a new French-African brand of food & hot drinks. Design of 4 possible future strategic scenarios echoing societal trends and including concept-stores, original product and event offers, storytelling and African artistic collaborations.
Aalto University, Helsinki
Plateforme internationale d’innovation sociétale
Insights on the role of art and artists in societal innovation. Co-design of an international and trans-disciplinary societal innovation camp (8 day task force – 150 participants – 40 nationalities). Design of an exhibition kit to stage, share and discuss groups’ work. Topics: life-long learning, urban inclusion and transition, aging society and silver potential, knowledge economy paradigm, etc.
Lexus Cars x Style Vision
Intercultural aesthetic research lab
Design of an image-based research methodology to explore the European sensibility and value-system, and improve the perception of Japanese luxury codes. Series of workshops and interviews to provide Japanese designers with constructive feedback. Recommendation of design principles.
Air de Paris x Paris East University
Aesthetic Audit Prototype
Design of an aesthetic audit methodology to identify the intangible assets of organizations as a source of creative and sustainable reinvention. Prototype testing on Air de Paris gallery and company, resulting in a double diagram. Presentation of the method as an Immaterial Economy Master thesis.
Covid-19 Socio-Economic & EU Resilience Lab
Series of collaborations and mobilization to tackle the crisis
Marshall Plan for Training, Commons and Purpose economy.
Research and design of post-covid-19 socio-economic resilience strategies > series of foresight and academic articles (La Tribune, medium.com, etc. 20-21), webinars (EU Commission, Unesco, 2020), and collective mobilization with European future think-tank LEAP2040. Series of future workshops on benefit corporations, APCI, 2020. Research and publication with Michel Bauwens on impact and “generative companies”.
Wildbunch Film Distribution
Socially Engaged Marketing Research
Open-lab sessions to rethink film promotion circuits and methods. Insights on urban innovation challenges, centrality issues, the role of cultural places (and movie theaters), and on possible synergies with social innovation, cultural and knowledge networks.
CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research), National Delegation
Future lab Science, society, innovation and soft power
Future insights on contemporary world transformations (digital and environmental transitions, globalization, new innovation ecosystems and cultures, AI, anthropological redefinition, identity crisis, Art-Science frontier, etc.). Identification of CNRS and Science key future challenges. Design of strategic scenario prototypes based on key macro-trends and workshops to co-design a visionary strategy (event formats and content) for the institution’s 80 year anniversary (local, national and international reach).
Grand Paris Aménagement
Collaborative innovation and future of work lab
Insights on urban innovation and resilience. Collaborative research to amplify the cultural and urban innovation of the group (via its real-estate branch and the Lafayette Anticipation Foundation). Topics: historical renovation, art’s contribution, experience and space design, retail, place-making, sustainability, etc.
Bouygues Construction
Future of campuses international study
Co-design, edition and writing with Peclers of an in-depth study of the future of campuses (weak signals methodology). Topics: new approaches to and spaces for pedagogy, universities’ national and international positioning, innovation ecosystems, inclusion in territorial dynamics, Y and Z generations’ well-being, etc.
Price Waterhouse Cooper, Luxembourg
Social and environmental responsibility future lab
Insights and collaborative research on new wider visions of the social and environmental responsibility of private and public corporations. Design of a conceptual map. Insights and open-lab on the meaning and model of “companies dedicated to art”.
Center For Molecular Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm
Audit and design of a future strategy
Research residency aiming to identify the levers for creative reinvention of the laboratory (300 elite international researchers). Exploratory workshops on the future of the laboratory, drugs and medicine, the input of art and the relationship between science and society. Design of a strategic future scenario and keynote.
AFHYPAC / France Hydrogene
Future lab for the French Hydrogen industry
Design and moderation of a collective intelligence process to explore possible futures for hydrogen, its industry in France and the association that represents it. Reflections on influence levers.
WDHB / Learning Expeditions
Design of a learning & foresight offer
Insight about future research methods, formats and actors. Workshop to co-design new “foresight and content” learning programs for international corporations, and evaluate development potentials and synergies with the other Learning & Development programs.
SOFERIM (Real Estate)
innovative project design
Contemporary world transformations masterclass at Palais de Tokyo in Paris (topics: Anthropocene and territorial resilience, digital transition, A.I. era, urban innovation, Creative City, role of art, patronage, etc.). Innovative project co-design workshops (Reinventing the Metropolis program).
ATHEM (events agency)
Future lab marketing innovation and strategy
Insights about the Creative City model and the potential for innovation. Series of workshops to reposition the company as a responsible and engaged urban stakeholder. Co-design of a strategy to create an iconic space hosting a hybrid artistic project and ecosystem for the program Reinventing the River.
Aalto University, Helsinki x Institute For The Future, Palo Aalto
Future of Alternative, Digital, Cultural and Philanthropic Economies
Insights on new economic models at the crossroads of profit and not-for-profit sectors. Experience sharing on the economy of culture. Critical and creative analysis via a series of conceptual diagrams elaborated between the workshops at IFTT and at Aalto University Design Management Dpt. See: iftf.org
Paris South University x Cigref
Y Generation, digital economy and the future of organizations
Series of research workshops on the digital era and the rise of the “digital natives”, the Y Generation, and their relation to work, time and the world. Research on the impact on organizational models and the separation of private and professional spheres. Design of a conceptual map overview.
Chanel Cosmetics x E-Mergences
Disruptive uses and narratives design lab
Creative and collaborative research (with E-Mergence agency) to design a palette of new applications, user experiences, vocabulary and strategies for cosmetics. Deepening of one disruptive strategy inspired by art, at the edge of emerging trends.
Toward Alien Cosmologies Lab, LIID R&D since 2017
Designing post-human futures in Anthropocene, AI and Post-Truth era.
Exploring 360° scenarios of large scales anthropological transitions. Series of exhibition (HiFlow Geneva, 2021-22), publications (Knowledge for the Anthropocene, E.Elgar, 2021, Sush Muzeum review #1, 2020, FuturHebdo Anthologies Prospectives review #5, 2020, FUTUR(S) book by Peclers, 2017) conferences (Cybiose Winter Symposium, Nordic Summer University, 2020, Art & Science Chair, Ecole Polytechnique-ENSAD, 2019, Disputaziune Susch #2, 2018), and design fiction workshops (Duperré Design School, 2018, Forecast Laboratory, Telecom Paris Tech, 2018).
Lab Machination
Research on Fiction as an instrument
Series of open-labs (Corner College, Zurich), conferences (Science & Fiction seminar, Paris 8 University, Second Fictions Symposium, Paris 1 University) and a text + images publication (d-fiction.fr), using LIID’s experiments to explore fictions and fictions embedded in fictions, as performative instruments.
Lab Open Polygon
Collaborative research methods, formats and spaces
Design of “polygonal” (multifaceted) research methods and spaces (work-station, performative installation or conference, mood-board, collaborative diagram, workshop direction, round-table, etc.). Experimentation during exhibitions at Apex Art, NY, Espace d’En Bas, Paris, Corner College, Zurich and Forde gallery, Geneva
Tales Magazine.com
Editorial direction and artistic platform
Editorial direction of the Vision section (art, architecture, ideas, literature) of online publication Tales Magazine (8 quarterly issues – in French-English). Mobilization of a community of contributors. Design of a creative platform strategy and innovative partnership models.
Lab Goodwill
Conceptual art and knowledge economy
Series of diagrams, Installation mapping LIID’s (Laboratoire d’Ingénierie d’IDées / Idea Engineering Lab) artistic and collaborative research ecosystem at the crossroad of conceptual art, immaterial economy, art and intelligence, and the aesthetics of organizations. Group show on the artist-entrepreneur model at Meymac Art Center, France. Diagram published in C Magazine, Toronto.
Lab PIIMS (Petite Industrie de l’Image Sensorielle)
Research on and with images
Creation of image banks, photographic installations, photomontages and critical methodologies to interpret and value images and the city, exhibited or published (see rbidaultwaddington.net). Narration of a photo-based fictional world questioning the digital era, the data-sphere and green global governances.
FUTURE LABS
IHEST, Institut des Hautes Etudes en Sciences et Technologies
(Institute for Higher Studies in Science and Technologies, Ministry of Research and Higher Education),
Series of thematic workshops and research groups, including the casting and invitation of guest academic and professional experts.
Themes: future of factories and fabrication, future of nuclear energy, future of economy and sustainability, future fashion and creative industries soft-power.
Covid-19 Socio-Economic & EU Resilience Lab
Series of collaborations and mobilization to tackle the crisis
Marshall Plan for Training, Commons and Purpose economy.
Research and design of post-covid-19 socio-economic resilience strategies > series of foresight and academic articles (La Tribune, medium.com, etc. 20-21), webinars (EU Commission, Unesco, 2020), and collective mobilization with European future think-tank LEAP2040. Series of future workshops on benefit corporations, APCI, 2020. Research and publication with Michel Bauwens on impact and “generative companies”.
AFHYPAC / France Hydrogene
Future lab for the French Hydrogen industry
Design and moderation of a collective intelligence process to explore possible futures for hydrogen, its industry in France and the association that represents it. Reflections on influence levers.
Peclers Future Trends
Global and Societal Future Trend Studies
Future trend research and editing for the FUTUR(S) book (professional and global publication distributed on five continents) based on a weak-signal method, and presenting a panorama of societal transformation on a 3-5 years horizon. Topics: identity codes and societal models, well-being, environment, collaborative economy revolution, cultural globalization and decolonization, relation to time and space, quest for meaning and transcendence, new frontiers of science and technologies, etc.
Wildbunch Film Distribution
Socially Engaged Marketing Research
Open-lab sessions to rethink film promotion circuits and methods. Insights on urban innovation challenges, centrality issues, the role of cultural places (and movie theaters), and on possible synergies with social innovation, cultural and knowledge networks.
WDHB / Learning Expedition
Design of a learning & foresight offer
Insight about future research methods, formats and actors. Workshop to co-design new “foresight and content” learning programs for international corporations, and evaluate development potentials and synergies with the other Learning & Development programs.
Bouygues Real Estate
Series of future studies
Series of future trends books written and edited with Peclers on the future of cities (ecology, mobility, well-being, technology, citizen life, creative and economic fertility, inclusion, branding and attractiveness, collective past and future imaginaries, etc.), of territorial and urban resilience (new sustainable development school declined in 4 dimensions: ecological, inclusive, collaborative and cultural), and of social, societal and urban innovations. Curation, casting and moderation of a round-table on the mobilization and power of new social and urban innovation networks.
CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research), National Delegation
Future lab Science, society, innovation and soft power
Future insights on contemporary world transformations (digital and environmental transitions, globalization, new innovation ecosystems and cultures, AI, anthropological redefinition, identity crisis, Art-Science frontier, etc.). Identification of CNRS and Science key future challenges. Design of strategic scenario prototypes based on key macro-trends and workshops to co-design a visionary strategy (event formats and content) for the institution’s 80 year anniversary (local, national and international reach).
SOFERIM (Real Estate)
Future workshops, transition and innovative project design
Contemporary world transformations masterclass at Palais de Tokyo in Paris (topics: Anthropocene and territorial resilience, digital transition, A.I. era, urban innovation, Creative City, role of art, patronage, etc.). Innovative project co-design workshops (Reinventing the Metropolis program).
Citynove / Galeries Lafayette Group
Cultural, collaborative and urban Innovation lab
Insights on urban innovation and resilience. Collaborative research to amplify the cultural and urban innovation of the group (via its real-estate branch and the Lafayette Anticipation Foundation). Topics: historical renovation, art’s contribution, experience and space design, retail, place-making, sustainability, etc.
Grand Paris Aménagement
Collaborative innovation and future of work lab
Insights on societal and urban trends (creative and collaborative spaces, innovation ecosystems, creative city, role of art). Series of workshops to program and co-design the common areas in the new head-quarter, in synergy with the group’s artistic, social and associative engagements.
ATHEM (communication and events)
Future lab marketing innovation and strategy
Insights about the Creative City model and the potential for innovation. Series of workshops to reposition the company as a responsible and engaged urban stakeholder. Co-design of a strategy to create an iconic space hosting a hybrid artistic project and ecosystem for the program Reinventing the River.
Cape & Cape (start-up)
Multi-cultural brand creation lab
Research on the rise of new African and Afro-European imaginaries to create a new French-African brand of food & hot drinks. Design of 4 possible future strategic scenarios echoing societal trends and including concept-stores, original product and event offers, storytelling and African artistic collaborations.
Bouygues Construction
Future of campuses international study
Co-design, edition and writing with Peclers of an in-depth study of the future of campuses (weak signals methodology). Topics: new approaches to and spaces for pedagogy, universities’ national and international positioning, innovation ecosystems, inclusion in territorial dynamics, Y and Z generations’ well-being, etc.
Aalto University x Institute For The Future, Palo Aalto
Future of Alternative, Digital, Cultural and Philanthropic Economies
Insights on new economic models at the crossroads of profit and not-for-profit sectors. Experience sharing on the economy of culture. Critical and creative analysis via a series of conceptual diagrams elaborated between the workshops at IFTT and at Aalto University Design Management Dpt. See: iftf.org
Aalto University, Helsinki
Plateforme internationale d’innovation sociétale
Insights on the role of art and artists in societal innovation. Co-design of an international and trans-disciplinary societal innovation camp (8 day task force – 150 participants – 40 nationalities). Design of an exhibition kit to stage, share and discuss groups’ work. Topics: life-long learning, urban inclusion and transition, aging society and silver potential, knowledge economy paradigm, etc.
Price Waterhouse Cooper, Luxembourg
Social and environmental responsibility future lab
Insights and collaborative research on new wider visions of the social and environmental responsibility of private and public corporations. Design of a conceptual map. Insights and open-lab on the meaning and model of “companies dedicated to art”.
Paris South University x Cigref
Y Generation, digital economy and the future of organizations
Series of research workshops on the digital era and the rise of the “digital natives”, the Y Generation, and their relation to work, time and the world. Research on the impact on organizational models and the separation of private and professional spheres. Design of a conceptual map overview.
Lexus Cars x Style Vision
Intercultural aesthetic research lab
Design of an image-based research methodology to explore the European sensibility and value-system, and improve the perception of Japanese luxury codes. Series of workshops and interviews to provide Japanese designers with constructive feedback. Recommendation of design principles.
Center For Molecular Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm
Audit and design of a future strategy
Research residency aiming to identify the levers for creative reinvention of the laboratory (300 elite international researchers). Exploratory workshops on the future of the laboratory, drugs and medicine, the input of art and the relationship between science and society. Design of a strategic future scenario and keynote.
Chanel Cosmetics x E-Mergences
Disruptive uses and narratives design lab
Creative and collaborative research (with E-Mergence agency) to design a palette of new applications, user experiences, vocabulary and strategies for cosmetics. Deepening of one disruptive strategy inspired by art, at the edge of emerging trends.
Air de Paris x Paris East University
Aesthetic Audit Prototype
Design of an aesthetic audit methodology to identify the intangible assets of organizations as a source of creative and sustainable reinvention. Prototype testing on Air de Paris gallery and company, resulting in a double diagram. Presentation of the method as an Immaterial Economy Master thesis.
LABs LIID R&D
Toward Alien Cosmologies Lab
Designing post-human futures in Anthropocene, AI and Post-Truth era.
Exploring 360° scenarios of large scales anthropological transitions. Series of exhibition (HiFlow Geneva, 2021-22), publications (Knowledge for the Anthropocene, E.Elgar, 2021, Sush Muzeum review #1, 2020, FuturHebdo Anthologies Prospectives review #5, 2020, FUTUR(S) book by Peclers, 2017) conferences (Cybiose Winter Symposium, Nordic Summer University, 2020, Art & Science Chair, Ecole Polytechnique-ENSAD, 2019, Disputaziune Susch #2, 2018), and design fiction workshops (Duperré Design School, 2018, Forecast Laboratory, Telecom Paris Tech, 2018).
Lab Machination
Research on Fiction as an instrument
Series of open-labs (Corner College, Zurich), conferences (Science & Fiction seminar, Paris 8 University, Second Fictions Symposium, Paris 1 University) and a text + images publication (d-fiction.fr), using LIID’s experiments to explore fictions and fictions embedded in fictions, as performative instruments.
Lab Open Polygon
Collaborative research methods, formats and spaces
Design of “polygonal” (multifaceted) research methods and spaces (work-station, performative installation or conference, mood-board, collaborative diagram, workshop direction, round-table, etc.). Experimentation during exhibitions at Apex Art, NY, Espace d’En Bas, Paris, Corner College, Zurich and Forde gallery, Geneva
Tales Magazine.com
Editorial direction and artistic platform
Editorial direction of the Vision section (art, architecture, ideas, literature) of online publication Tales Magazine (8 quarterly issues – in French-English). Mobilization of a community of contributors. Design of a creative platform strategy and innovative partnership models.
Lab Goodwill
Conceptual art and knowledge economy
Series of diagrams, Installation mapping LIID’s (Laboratoire d’Ingénierie d’IDées / Idea Engineering Lab) artistic and collaborative research ecosystem at the crossroad of conceptual art, immaterial economy, art and intelligence, and the aesthetics of organizations. Group show on the artist-entrepreneur model at Meymac Art Center, France. Diagram published in C Magazine, Toronto.
Lab PIIMS (Petite Industrie de l’Image Sensorielle)
Little Industry of the Sensorial Image, Research by and with images
Creation of image banks, photographic installations, photomontages and critical methodologies to interpret and value images and the city, exhibited or published (see rbidaultwaddington.net). Narration of a photo-based fictional world questioning the digital era, the data-sphere and green global governances.