The SF-SF: Fighting for the Future fellowship explored how speculative fiction intersects with financial and technological systems, examining the ways in which imagined futures shape real-world socio-technical and economic processes. Modern societies face unprecedented challenges from the rapid integration of digital technologies, algorithmic finance, and emerging artificial intelligence systems. These developments raise urgent questions about governance, ethics, inequality, and societal resilience—problems that cannot be fully understood through traditional disciplinary lenses.
This project addressed these challenges by combining social sciences, humanities, and narrative analysis. Using speculative fiction as both a research lens and a method, the project traced how cultural imaginaries of finance and technology influence policy, corporate decision-making, and public perceptions. By integrating qualitative research with theoretical analysis, the fellowship aimed to produce knowledge that is both academically rigorous and socially relevant.
The main objectives were:
To develop a robust interdisciplinary framework linking speculative fiction, finance, and socio-technical systems.
To generate research outputs that advance understanding of how elites in technology and finance shape global economic and social structures.
To translate scholarly insights into public debate, media engagement, and policy-relevant knowledge.
To mentor the next generation of researchers and foster international academic collaboration.
The project pathway to impact combined high-level academic dissemination with broad societal engagement. Research outputs—including journal articles, a monograph, and public essays—were complemented by workshops, international talks, and media appearances, ensuring that findings reached both scholarly and non-academic audiences. By making research openly accessible and engaging with public and policy actors, the fellowship maximized its potential impact on debates about technology, finance, and society.
The project’s expected impacts are significant at multiple levels:
Academic impact: advancing interdisciplinary approaches in social sciences and humanities, developing new methods to study socio-technical futures, and strengthening the integration of narrative analysis into political and economic research.
Societal impact: improving public understanding of complex financial and technological systems, informing debates on responsible technology governance, and contributing to democratic decision-making processes.
Strategic impact: supporting policymakers, NGOs, and civil society in navigating socio-technical transformations, while promoting open science and international collaboration.
Overall, this fellowship demonstrates the value of integrating social sciences and humanities into research on pressing contemporary challenges, using imaginative inquiry to illuminate the connections between culture, finance, and technology and to inform socially responsible futures.
