Futures and Heritage newsletter

What’s the connection between heritage and the future? How can heritage help us think about the future better? And can people working in public policy use this to think about what matters, and how to look after it?

In a new limited-run newsletter series, Professor Richard Sandford will be exploring these questions, which are the foundation of our new Heritage, Evidence Foresight and Policy MSc.

In the face of social and planetary change, we need to critically and strategically about the long-term futures of what society values. Foresight and futures thinking are used by public policy and social innovation groups around the world to develop new ideas of the future and think beyond short-term horizons. Enriching these techniques with a heritage perspective can build a deeper understanding of what matters to society and what is worth working for in the future.

By drawing together the disciplinary practices of heritage and foresight, students will be equipped the tools needed to imagine different futures that are grounded in what societies value, and create evidence-based heritage, social and cultural policy that works for the long-term good.

Over the next eight weeks Professor Sandford will be exploring the key themes of the Master’s through this series of newsletters. Drawing on a range of disciplinary perspectives, he will be examining where heritage and futures thinking connect, using current examples from across the world.

Read and subscribe to the Future and Heritage newsletter

Image credit: Space Colony Art from the 1970s - NASA Ames Research Center (NASA ID NUMBER AC75-1883)