Shaping Future Society (SaFe): The Mututal Constitution of Future-Oriented Practices and Com-munity

• Subject Area: Social Sciences
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 528585458

Contemporary society is characterised by multiple insecurities which are often experienced as crises. When seen as such, this evokes responses at all levels: Scientific analyses seek to de-velop forecasts and prognoses, policy-makers try to mitigate the effects of crises, and social movements form protests against existing orders. This research impulse “Shaping Future Socie-ty” (SaFe) takes this contemporary volatility as a starting point and asks how different social ac-tors envision alternative ideas of the future and how they employ future-oriented practices, with which they want to shape their own, but also societal future. At the centre of attention of this pro-ject lies the nexus between future-oriented practices and processes of communitization. Community, as a basic element of social order, plays a crucial role in shaping people’s scope for ac-tion and serves as a catalyst for future-oriented practices. The empirical research will be con-ducted in six sub-projects led by social scientists specialising in different social fields represent-ing the university’s priority research area “Quality of Life and Health”: housing, health, nutrition, indigeneity, protest, and biography. While the overall focus of the project is on researching fu-ture-oriented practices in the present in an empirically-grounded way, the methods applied vary from ethnography to standardized procedures. Furthermore, the joint methodological approach serves the aim of contributing to the integration of fundamental and applied research with the help of a transformative and transdisciplinary approach. At the structural level, SaFe seeks to develop existing research structures at Fulda University of Applied Sciences (HFD), which currently include research and graduate centres in both social and health sciences. In furthering these research structures, the emphasis lies on supporting structures for early-career researchers. SaFe plans to develop and set up a Research Hub which will gather together individual scientists and projects from several departments to reinforce HFD’s focus on “Quality of Life and Health”. The Research Hub also aims to create networks within the academic community and to support SaFe’s ultimate aim of establishing the position of HFD as a leader in the field of future-oriented studies in the social sciences. In addition, a Meth-ods Laboratory of Social Sciences will be set up to support methodical and methodological com-petencies across the university, as well as to provide a structure to help develop the quality of teaching activities, support early-career researchers, and increase the focus on research activi-ties at HFD.

• DFG Programme: Research Impulses
• Applicant Institution: Hochschule Fulda - University of Applied Sciences
• Spokesperson: Professorin Dr. Eva Gerharz
• Participating Researchers: Professorin Dr. Monika Alisch; Dr. Sebastian Garbe; Professorin Dr. Nadine Reibling; Professorin Dr. Martina Ritter; Professorin Dr. Tonia Ruppenthal; Professorin Dr. Jana Rückert-John; Professorin Dr. Rixta Wundrak
• Cooperation Partner: Professorin Dr. Simone Kreher