The Long View Project
NC State’s Long View Project seeks to anticipate the intermediate and far future by building on the interdisciplinary expertise of the world’s best scholars.
“The very act of trying to look ahead to discern possibilities and offer warnings is in itself an act of hope.”
Octavia Butler
About the Long View Project
As part of NC State’s Climate and Sustainability Academy, the Long View Project investigates possible futures through conversations and creative projects that engage and inspire participants and audiences to build the futures they want.
- Our annual Envisioning Urban Futures event, organized in partnership with the Peter A. Pappas Real Estate Development Program, brings together scientists, artists, engineers, and other experts from across the disciplines to envision urban futures.
- The Hopeful Futures series explores plausible, positive futures through conversations that engage and inspire participants and audiences to create the futures they want.
- The Long View Interviews are in-depth conversations with small groups of disciplinary experts about discoveries that will transform our future, covering subjects ranging from artificial intelligence and education to transportation, energy, and waste.
- The Long View Future Scenarios are challenges to engage your imagination and ponder how we can take action now to prepare for or alter what is to come.
- We can help you incorporate futures thinking into your work or teaching.
Students graduating from universities today will be hitting their mid-career stride around the year 2050. By 2050, their world will be one in which energy systems, communication, ecological realities, climate and societal context are far different than they are today. As scholars and educators, if our research is to be useful, our public engagement relevant and our students successful, we must do all we can to try to anticipate the future.
The Long View Project Community of Practice meets once per semester. We aim to create a community of practice that both informs and draws from our collective work to vision the future. More than anything, it is a place to share, to embrace quantitative, artistic and narrative approaches to understanding the future, and to leverage the resulting imaginaries to foster more innovative and impactful work in the lab, classroom, and community and inspire action towards realizing positive futures.
To join, please sign up for our Google Group, [email protected].
news
Sustainable Futures Fellows Imagine Pathways to Sustainable Industry
Written by JoAnna Klein, Public Communications Specialist, Long View Project Conducting deep research and engaging their imagination, NC State’s 2026 Sustainable Futures Fellows discovered that the sustainable futures they want are possible, with the right research, education and collaboration along the way. On Jan. 28, 20 graduate and undergraduate students left the campus of NC…
Creativity to Imagine the Future at NC State
What do science fiction stories, 10-minute plays, and scholar-driven conversations have in common? They’re all working to change our planet’s future through creative solutions to wicked problems like climate change. The impacts of climate change are both immediate and far-reaching. As NC State prepares students for careers that will extend far beyond the next five…
A More Breathable Raleigh: Muggy, but Not Miserable
When I wrapped the soaked bandana around my dog’s neck, it was still crunchy from the freezer. But now we’ve walked past two houses, and it’s gone limp in the…
A Hopeful Future of Pets
On March 11, students, faculty, and staff gathered in the Fishbowl Forum for the Hopeful Futures: Future of Pets event to discuss human relationships with pets and how AI and genetic tools are advancing research on our furry friends.
Will We Build Cities for Humans or Machines?
In October 2023, JoAnna Klein interviewed research ecologist Adam Terando along with drone aficionado Evan Arnold and public transportation systems researcher Kai Monast about the future of transportation. As climate changes and advanced technology accelerates, they explored a unique opportunity to rethink how people, goods and ideas move around the world.
Can We Reach Green Goals by 2050? Yes, But It’s Complicated
Jordan Kern models environmental risks, and Harrison Fell studies the economics of energy systems and policy. In November 2023, they shared what they know about what influences energy policies, how those policies play out in society, and why people behave the way they do. In our conversation, they laid out the challenges – and opportunities – that may arise on the journey to a green energy future.