Paul Coulton

Paul Coulton is the Chair of Speculative and Game Design within Lancaster University’s open and exploratory, design-led research lab, Imagination and the School of Design. His practice uses research through design to create experiential futures which deliberately mix a present experience with a speculative future that are concretised by combining immersive scenarios with artefacts produced as design fictions or speculative designs. His work has helped establish a particular form of Speculative Design; Design Fiction, as a research method exploring futures for areas such as the Internet of Things and Artificial intelligence. His current research focusses on more-than-human design to expand design approaches so that they play greater consideration to human and non-human actants within the complex assemblages in which new product and services exist particularly in relation to sustainability and climate change.

anna meroni

Anna Meroni is Full Professor in Design and Deputy Dean of the School of Design of Politecnico di Milano. She is co-founder of the DESIS Network Association and honorary member of its International Coordination Committee Her research focus is service and strategic design for sustainability to foster social innovation, participation and local development. She has developed a specific expertise in co-design strategies, methods and tools. Anna originated the concept of community-centred design and works transversally on new entrepreneurship, place making, public services, urban commons and responsible research and innovation – RRI. She is principal investigator of national and international research projects, chair of conferences, author of several publications, member of different scientific boards and visiting lecturer in international universities