The great power of fiction to transform reality. It allows us to mediate, align actors, and guide decisions.
This is the contribution to social innovation from Worldbuilding (creation of future worlds), from Teresa Bosch 's doctoral thesis .
The graduate, professor and researcher of the House and co-founder of the Austral World Building Lab defended her research yesterday entitled " Worldbuilding , Creation and Design of Worlds for Social Innovation. A methodological contribution from fiction to reality" before a tribunal composed of Dr. Analía Cervini, Dr. Francisco Albarello and Dr. Helena Galán (Carlos III University of Madrid).
In the words of the PhD in Social Communication: “I decided to study how Worldbuilding could contribute to the design of social innovation processes. To answer this question, together with several colleagues present today, we created the Austral World Building Lab, a platform from which we began to work on designing futures and searching for new ways to intervene in reality .”
“My starting point was fiction, especially literary and cinematic worlds. By studying the work of Alex McDowell, I understood how it impacts our perceptions, our thoughts and actions, and how it can open up possibilities for innovation,” he explained.
The documentary corpus consisted of 53 sources, including ten films related to the work of Alex McDowell, 18 scientific, cultural, educational, corporate, and community projects, as well as lectures, journalistic reports, academic articles, podcasts, and specialized media. The research also enabled a systematization of Worldbuilding as a methodology for social innovation.
Their results demonstrated the potential of Worldbuilding , a narrative, prospective and systemic process, as a social innovation methodology capable of co-creating future scenarios, articulating narratives of change, integrating diverse knowledge and translating complex problems into prototypes, decisions and possible actions.
“This work opens up a new methodological field. The next step is to transform this initial, adaptable, and transferable model into an institutional, technological, and regional platform that will allow us to continue developing Worldbuilding applied to social innovation and transformation processes,” concluded Tere, after thanking her advisor, Dr. Damián Fernández Pedemonte , the mentor and creator of Worldbuilding , Alex McDowell , the other members of the Faculty's Governing Council, the Doctoral Program Director, Marita Grillo , family, colleagues, students, and friends who accompanied her on this significant day.
Congratulations, Dr. Bosch!
