On 8 November 2017, members of the Institute for Social Futures and colleagues from Lancaster University held a researcher and practitioner panel at the 2nd international Anticipation Conference in Senate House, London. In line with the ISF’s founding aims to work across academe, business and the community we brought together a panel of four researchers from Lancaster University and four eminent practitioners in their respective research fields.

Our panel’s title was ‘The Time of Social Futures’. The topics that our researcher-practitioner panel dwelled on in order of appearance were: The aesthetics of anticipating the future led by Emily Spiers, Lecturer in Creative Futures at the ISF with Peter Kalu, storyteller and Artistic Director of Commonword; Alternative homes and ageing futures led by Melissa Fernández Arrigoitia, Lecturer in Urban Futures at the ISF with Stephen Hill, a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor and board member of the National Community Land Trust, and the director of the UK Cohousing Network; The cultures and organizations of anticipation in financial markets led by Emre Tarim, Lecturer in Behavioural Sciences at the Department of Marketing , Lancaster University with Greg B. Davis, founder of Centapse and formerly founding director of the banking world’s first behavioural finance team at Barclays; and The past futures of urbanization led by Carlos Galvin Lopez Lecturer in the Theories and Methods of Social Futures at the ISF with Michael Hebbert, Emeritus Professor of Town Planning at the Bartlett School, University College London, and Chairman of London Crossrail Design Review Panel.