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A group of people gather around tables covered with colorful craft materials and paper sculptures, working together on creative art projects in a bright indoor space.

New Waterscapes: Tales from Imagined Coastal Futures. Photo: Andi Sapey

Institute for Sustainable Worlds

The Institute for Sustainable Worlds at Norwich is a new home for research applying creative methods to acts of collective imagination.

We help people, together, create and explore possible futures: imagining, designing, materialising, and experiencing new ways to live, in an age of crises. We aim to show that other worlds are possible, grounded in understanding our world better.

Why an Institute for Sustainable Worlds?

The conjunction of climate change, health crises, and social inequalities can form a grim picture for our collective futures. Perhaps we are in a “crisis of imagination,” as discussed by authors such as Amitav Ghosh, Geoff Mulgan, and Ruha Benjamin: our societies trapped in particular trajectories, unable to conceive of alternatives.

But this misses the power of creative methods. Art and design are built around imagination: showing that other worlds, other ways of thinking and feeling and being are possible, and within our abilities. We can help people imagine and tell stories about new ways to live, and we can design and build these new worlds. Through collaborative research, we can break down silos between arts, sciences, social sciences, humanities, and technologies, and communities’ everyday experience.

What we do

The Institute for Sustainable Worlds is developing a research-driven role for creativity in societal imagination. What could sustainable futures—better futures—mean in everyday life? Across everything from mental health, to the food we eat, to the way we engage with the countryside, the Institute’s projects design, use, and refine creative, critically-informed, interdisciplinary research methods, in both community and organisational contexts.

We work regionally, nationally, and internationally, via a strong network of collaborators inside and outside academia. In particular we aim to build stronger links between East Anglia and the Netherlands. Through co-creation, collaboration, and interdisciplinary knowledge exchange, engaging with policymakers, communities, and civil society, we aim to demonstrate the powerful contributions of creative methods to knowledge-making and societal impact.

More about our work


Our work:

  • surfaces, investigates, and facilitates sharing of people’s worlds, lived experience, and imaginaries of futures of everyday life
  • opens up collective imagination for more sustainable worlds—building capacity and confidence to imagine, visualise, build, and experiment with different futures and more just societies, and with new interactions between humans, nature, and technologies
  • designs, prototypes, and materialises diverse (and divergent) possible futures in engaging and experiential ways—enabling provocation, confrontation, emotion, and reflection, including on histories and people’s lived experience
  • produces plausible narratives of change with and for our partner organisations and collaborators


We support Norwich University of the Arts’ Research and Knowledge Exchange and Sustainability strategies, working with the Institute for Creative Technologies and across the university’s research groups, and benefitting from facilities such as the Immersive Visualisation & Simulation Lab. We aim to involve staff and students across the university in the Institute’s work, developing funded projects, running events around research methods and development, and ultimately demonstrating the powerful impact creative methods can make on society.

Sunsets & Sunrises workshop, Utrecht
Large cyanotypes hanging in St Peter Hungate: Shape Shift Converse Rework at Hungate Medieval Art, Norwich, in July 2025.
A disused windmill standing on the bans of a river in the Norfolk broads.

Explore our projects

Our project partners

Our collaborators, regionally and internationally, include the Broads Authority, Jameel Arts & Health Lab (NYU), Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, Utrecht University, Wageningen University & Research, Centre for Unusual Collaborations, Sainsbury Centre, Eindhoven University of Technology, University Medical Centre Utrecht, Hospital Rooms, NICHE, Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care System, Imaginaries Lab, Foundation We Are, and Norfolk Museums Service.

  • Broads Authority logo featuring a teal dragonfly within a yellow circle, with the words "Broads Authority" in teal text on a yellow background, reflecting its commitment to wetlands and paludiculture.
  • Logo for "Jameel Arts & Health Lab" with modern blue geometric shapes to the left of the text, resembling a stylized abstract form inspired by murals.
  • The logo of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, featuring the NHS logo in white letters on a blue background, with black and blue text reading "Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust.
  • The Utrecht University logo features a stylized black and yellow sunburst seal with a red and white shield, next to the words "Utrecht University" in bold black text.
  • Logo of Wageningen University & Research featuring a green abstract symbol above a dark blue brushstroke, with the text "WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY & RESEARCH" in bold blue letters to the right.
  • Logo with a stylized orange octopus to the left and bold black text reading "CENTRE FOR UNUSUAL COLLABORATIONS" on a light background. "COLLABORATIONS" is underlined.
  • Logo of Eindhoven University of Technology. Large red letters "TU/e" on the left and "Eindhoven University of Technology" stacked in red text on the right, all on a light background.
  • Black text on a white background reads “SAINSBURY CENTRE” in large, bold, uppercase letters, with “SAINSBURY” on the top line and “CENTRE” beneath it.
  • The logo of UMC Utrecht featuring a blue stylized starburst with a "U" in the center, next to the text "UMC Utrecht" in blue on a light background.
  • White text on a black background reads "HOSPITAL ROOMS," with the bottom curve of the "R" in "ROOMS" extended to form a smile-like shape, evoking the uplifting murals often found in care spaces.
  • A circular logo with a blue windmill in the center, surrounded by the words "IGNITE, INNOVATE, EMBED." Below the windmill, “NICHE” is written, followed by “Anchor institute 2025.”.
  • Logo of Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care System with the text "Improving lives together" and a colorful abstract figure with uplifted arms on the left.
  • Logo for "imaginaries lab" in bold blue lowercase letters, with three pairs of circles (one orange, one light blue) above the letters "i," "a," and "e," resembling ideas or connections.
  • A dark blue square with a white border. In the lower right corner, bold white text reads "we are." The rest of the square is empty.
  • Logo of Norfolk Museums featuring two white arches forming an “M” shape on a dark blue background, with the text “Norfolk Museums” in white to the right of the arches.

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Institutes