Strategy - Imagination

OUR STRATEGY:

HOW WE'LL GET THERE

The Clarke Center is a research-and-practice hub, where the best insights from the neuroscience of imagination are connected with the latest in technology and put to use to unlock the transformative power of imagination across age groups, and communities to tackle the most pressing issues facing the planet.

Collectively, we face seemingly impossible challenges. Yet imagination discovers new possibilities within the impossible. Imagination is at the root of empathy and compassion. Imagination gives rise to hope. We aim to unleash the power of imagination to tackle the most pressing issues facing life on Earth—to envision and build a more equitable and sustainable world.

Across the four areas of the Clarke Center, we:

Conduct research and develop the field of Imagination Studies, better enabling us to understand and tap into the power of imagination;
Create educational programs and public engagement to develop the next generation of Imaginauts—practitioners in any field that know how to effect positive change through imagination; and
Inspire through futures literacy—empowering everyone with the capacity to envision possible, probable, and preferable futures for themselves, their families, and their communities and the tools for making those visions a powerful tool for present-day change
Reach for the stars, both as a guiding inspiration and literally through research on brain functioning conducted on the International Space Station or the construction of new telescopes to see further back to the beginning of time and our universe than ever before

IF WE SUCCEED:

Imagination will be 1) broadly recognized as key, crucial, fundamental, necessary, the core element (oxygen) of problem solving; 2) centralized as a skill to be cultivated (like piano); and 3) honed as a powerful resource, worthy of being protected and preserved

The dangers or liabilities of imagination, such as anxiety, depression, racism or xenophobia, for example, in individuals and in groups, are understood and countered effectively

The Atlas of Imagination is a well-recognized framework for Imagination Studies that guides research and serves as a transdisciplinary window into an important element of human existence.

We have 10x expanded the neuroscience of imagination, developed and tested new theories, extended beyond the individual (e.g. to groups)

Tools for imagination are widespread, accessible, and commonly used.

Training in imagination is routine in engineering, science, medicine, etc.

Futures Literacy through science fiction and speculative futures are supported as ways of proactively creating the future.

We will know more about how imagination—in the vessel of the human—encounters, understands, survives, and adapts in travel to the cosmos and what that reveals to us about the human condition