Isabelle Garabuau-Moussaoui has been working as a social sciences researcher at EDF (Electricité de France) R&D since 2003. She is specialised in the socio-anthropology of consumption and energy-related practices of households and of employees in companies. Until last year, she collaborated with the DEMAND centre (University of Lancaster).
She is piloting a project, the “Trends Lab”, that assumes that innovations are not (only) technologic and that methods to explore trends, innovations, transitions and future(s) have to be interdisciplinary and exploratory. The project is exploring new ways of thinking and working in order to cross social, cultural and demographic trends with transitions in politics and policy, technology and infrastructures, environment and climate.
The workshop is an opportunity to discuss the process that the “Trends Lab” is developing and also to collectively develop new insights and initiatives (an international network to explore social innovations, for instance?) or to explore methods, as the “what if” history, the design thinking, the relationship between fiction and social sciences, etc.
Georgia Newmarch is a doctoral researcher at Lancaster University’s Institute for Social Futures. She has an MA(RCA) in History of Design from the Royal College of Art/Victoria and Albert Museum.
Her current research engages with everyday futures through electrical blackouts and power failure in Britain, using historical, present and anticipating future scenarios. Building on her previous research about cultures surrounding coal and the design of industrial action, she considers the implications that disruption has on everyday lives by combining many different elements and disciplinary perspectives, such as social history, sociology and design theory. By approaching concepts such as boundaries between objects, the environment, energy, human bodies, human relations and human action she hopes to develop new approaches to technology, innovation and resilience.
Ida Nilstad Pettersen is an associate professor at the Department of Product Design of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU, in Trondheim, Norway. She holds a PhD degree in industrial design engineering from the same university, specialising in ecological design.
Her research is concerned with everyday futures as it addresses the role of design in fostering change in the everyday practices of citizens and professionals. She has explored this issue drawing on design and social practice theory, and through case studies on design activity in industry, selected household practices, energy management and use in non-residential buildings, and the transformation of public health and care services. A current research interest is sustainable urban development. In the network, she hopes to learn and develop new ideas about how everyday futures are and can be collectively constructed.