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Please join PDW 12699: The Future of Future-Making Research 

When: Saturday, July 26th 2025, 1:30PM - 3:30PM  

Where: Copenhagen Business School (Building Kilen, Room KS48) 

Sponsoring Divisions: SAP, OMT, ENT, TIM 

Add event to your program: https://cdmcd.co/d6nYZr 

Panelists: 

Future-making research enables organizations to imagine better futures and more effectively integrate future visions into new ventures, products, or services. It also empowers scholars to develop prospective theories that can contribute to more desirable futures. However, while future-making research is highly relevant in theory and practice, its conceptualization and boundaries remain blurry. For example, future-making may be seen as an evolutionary practice of making sense of possible and probable futures, or as a more revolutionary practice of envisioning desirable futures. To better understand the varying perspectives, scholars may reflectively reappraise past research and evaluate, negotiate, and shape established theories towards future-fit, while prospectively formulating new theories and rigorously design research programs that remain relevant in an unknowable future. To this end, future-making research poses at least four types of challenges: (1) translational challenges of reconciling philosophical assumptions, (2) transformational challenges of reconciling theory and practice, (3) transitory challenges of reconciling stability and change, and (4) transtemporal challenges of reconciling temporal orientations. The PDW brings together renowned scholars to share their unique perspectives and provide guidance to future-making researchers from diverse fields-including strategic management, entrepreneurship, design, innovation, ethics, and futures studies- to discuss and find ways for tackling the unique challenges of future-making scholarship. 

The PDW is open to all interested scholars and features four parts: 

Part 1: Introduction 

Introduction of organizers and panelists, setting the stage, and sharing the goals and planned structure for the PDW.  

Part 2: Panelist Presentations 

Four 10-minute presentations on panelists' perspectives on the future of future-making research. Each panelist will provide a unique perspective, based on past and ongoing future-making research.  

Part 3: Roundtable Discussions 

By joining one of four roundtables, participants will gain advice from panelists on shaping future-oriented research. This focused interaction supports both the conception and execution of high-impact scholarly work.  

Part 4: Open Forum and Concluding Remarks  

Each roundtable shares a brief recap of their roundtable discussion, inviting participants to join the conversation. At last, the organizers share some concluding observations/thoughts/reactions, summarizing the key takeaways of the session, and invite participants to connect for future collaborations.  

On behalf of the organizers 

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Nico Klenner, PhD 

Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Human-Centred Innovation & Entrepreneurship 

Convenor of the Master of Entrepreneurship and Innovation 

Research School of Management, ANU College of Business and Economics