Take part in a discussion about how sustainability innovation can drive fundamental shifts in societies around the world. Webinar airs on 3 March. Future Earth’s Transformations Knowledge-Action Network will host its third webinar in a series on 3 March at 13:00 CET. The webinar, called “Transformative innovation for a 1.5ºC world,” will feature speakers Frances Westley and Graham Leicester. Westley is a world renowned scholar from the Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Leicester, Director of the International Futures Forum, is the author of Transformative Innovation: A Guide to Practice and Policy.
The webinar is open to any interested participants, including scientists, communicators, and other professionals in the fields of sustainability and global change. You can register for the webinar here. For those that can't join live, the webinar will also be archived here.
The event will focus on the question of how societies around the world can build transformative change – fundamental shifts toward new patterns in society that are aligned to future aspirations. The speakers will bring together key insights from the practice and study of innovation to explore how these lessons can broaden understanding of transformative change. After the presentations, the webinar will open up to comments, discussion and questions to the speakers.
This webinar is part of a series of activities organised by Future Earth's Transformations Knowledge-Action Network. It is a research collaboration that seeks to mobilise a community of researchers and practitioners interested in exploring social transformations to sustainability.
For more information about the webinar, or to find out how you can get involved in the Transformations Knowledge-Action Network, contact the Future Earth Secretariat at transformations@futureearth.org.
Speakers:
Frances Westley is a renowned scholar and consultant in the areas of social innovation, strategies for sustainable development, strategic change, visionary leadership and inter-organisational collaboration. Her most recent book, Getting to Maybe (Random House, 2006) focuses the dynamics of social innovation, and institutional entrepreneurship in complex adaptive systems. Experiments in Consilience (Island Press, 2004) focuses on the dynamics of inter-organisational and interdisciplinary collaboration in the management of ecological and conservation problems. At the University of Waterloo, she leads a research team dedicated to understanding social innovation, and has designed both graduate and undergraduate curricula in social innovation.
Graham Leicester is Director of the International Futures Forum, a group established in 2001 to address the question of how to take effective action in a complex world we do not understand and cannot control. His most recent books explore the theory and practice of "21st Century Competencies" and "Transformative Innovation." Leicester previously ran Scotland's leading think tank, the Scottish Council Foundation, founded in 1997. From 1984 to 1995, he served as a diplomat in HM Diplomatic Service, specialising in China (he speaks Mandarin Chinese) and the European Union. Between 1995 and 1997, he was senior research fellow with the Constitution Unit at University College London. He has also worked as a freelance professional cellist. He has a strong interest in governance, innovation and education.