In 2023, UN Global Pulse published its research paper, The Most Creative Look to the Future, which looked at how imagination and creative practice can spark innovation and organizational transformation. The research highlights pathways for how imagination can permeate the UN system and catalyse the creativity required for the UN to deliver on its bold vision for people and planet. It also provided concrete recommendations for how artistic, speculative and visionary practices provide critical tools for modelling, exploring and manifesting the futures we want.
To support the implementation of these recommendations, UN Global Pulse and CoFUTURES at the University of Oslo have partnered to articulate the value of speculative storytelling in supporting transformation and innovation across the UN system. The collaboration explores how participatory innovation methods and storytelling might serve as powerful tools for envisioning and advocating for a “UN 2.0” that is more responsive, inclusive, and future-oriented, while centering the voices and aspirations of multiple communities in the pursuit of a more just and sustainable world.
The project will begin in Brazil, Mexico, and Indonesia, collaborating with local social innovators and UN colleagues through creative workshops and experimental, collaborative learning spaces. By bringing together diverse perspectives from communities, policymakers, artists, and researchers, the project seeks to co-design and implement methods that support social transformation and innovation across the UN system.
In 2025, following the creative workshops and experimentation phase, UN Global Pulse will launch pilot projects alongside UN entities and external partners to further test, refine, and adapt speculative-based strategies for strategic planning, capacity building, and policy support to improve our offerings to sister organizations and member states.
Ultimately, the project aims to not only enable innovation but also encourage a safe, inclusive culture that supports collective efforts to create places across the United Nations where everyone belongs and can contribute.
In what ways can speculative frameworks and new forms of storytelling help the United Nations reimagine the future of multilateralism?
Our impact
This project, currently on-going in the Brazil and Mexico contexts, aims to improve the UN system’s skills and knowledge on participatory innovation and storytelling methods to create more impactful and meaningful innovation projects and programmes.
The experiment’s expected long-term impact, through concrete projects with UN entities, is expected to improve policy-making, community-building and decision-making, ensuring the UN system is more future-oriented and participatory.
Resources
- Report: The Most Creative Look to the Future: Imagination and Creative Practice in Service of Organizational Transformation
- Workbook: The Right Invitation – A workbook for creative transformation
- Creative Practice Competency Model: A framework for the attitudes and behaviors required to practice creativity in a way that leads to innovation and impact
- CoFUTURES Literacy Project at the University of Oslo