People talking in the main entrance of the college at the degree show private view for IDE and GID from the Dyson School of Design Engineering. A dark purple image lights up the space.

Strategic Futures Design Lab

Exploring how designers and engineers can work for, with, and in the future. We work at the intersection of innovation, sustainability, and futures - to navigate complexity, harness emerging technology and build better futures through design.

Find out more

About the lab

What we do

We develop tools, systems, and strategies that help people and organisations design sustainable and equitable futures. Our work supports individuals and teams to reflect on how they work, expand their thinking, and make more confident, informed decisions. We don’t just imagine different futures - we build them, with clarity, creativity, and a commitment to real-world impact.

See examples of our work

Our expertise

We specialise in design-led research that combines foresight, systems thinking, and data enabled practices. Our work draws on experience harnessing emerging technologies, strategic design, circular innovation, and stakeholder collaboration. We work across disciplines and sectors to help teams map complexity, explore long-term risks and opportunities, and co-create meaningful, future-facing solutions.

Find out more about working together

Feature

Designing for future heritage

What if we viewed everything we create as future planetary heritage – how would that affect the way we design to exploit and protect resources, and how we deal with challenges such as equity and climate? ​ An ongoing collaborative project series in partnership with Professor Sandra Kemp at The Ruskin Museum and Research Institute

Find out more

About us

Led by Dr Leila Sheldrick, we are a design research laboratory bringing together a diverse group of researchers, students, and collaborators working across design, engineering, and innovation to create new knowledge and practical change.

We are based in the pioneering Dyson School of Design Engineering - home to a large transdisciplinary innovation community built on the power of design. We empower innovators and decision-makers to harness the power of a rigorous and creative discipline that constructs better social and technical systems using new technologies as building blocks. By fusing the technical to the human, we’re helping to create a world that’s just, sustainable, and teeming with possibilities.