The Creative University: Possible Futures in and for Higher Education
This talk explores how universities create possible futures. At the heart of my talk is a fresh look at Arts and Humanities: how the expertise currently held within the higher education system might be realigned to facilitate better prospecting behaviour across society, and what this would mean for that education system if such a realignment were to happen at scale. I will draw on my experience of working with literary fiction in a number of diverse sectors in the UK, Europe, and the US. In so doing, I will urge reflection on how we use terms such as ‘translation’ and ‘translational research’ and, with this, how exactly a language of possibilities can be sustained right across campus that both universities and the wider world might understand.
Rebecca Braun
Professor Rebecca Braun is Executive Dean of the College of Arts, Social Sciences & Celtic Studies as well as Established Professor of German at the University of Galway, Ireland. A founding Associate Director and Co-Director of the Institute for Social Futures from 2017-2020 at Lancaster University, UK, she led the Institute's development of a distinctive Creative Futures methodology with partners across government and academe in the UK, Europe, South Africa, and North America. Her futures work builds on a deep understanding of the power of people and stories, which she has traced in numerous books on authorship, world literature, transnationalism, and cultural value. She is currently leading the ‘Literary Futures’ research project and a wider ‘Creative Futures’ research group at the University of Galway.