Rob Hopkins

Our question this time was slightly adapted from one sent in by subscriber Pamela Barnes. As the world attempts to claw its way back from the COVID19 pandemic, and as opinion polls show an overwhelming support for not ‘going back’ to how things were before, people are increasingly discussing and exploring new models for an economy that better needs the needs of the population as a whole. One of th...

In this episode we are exploring a question sent in by subscriber Joy Cherkaoui. One of the things a future in which imagination is able to flourish will need is spaces in which imagination and creativity are invited. Intentionally. These can take many forms, but we need them. What then are the ingredients of such spaces? What makes a good one? Who gets to create them? How can we ensure that they...

Doughnut Economics is rapidly moving from the fringe to the mainstream. Amsterdam in Holland was recently confirmed as the first ‘Doughnut City’, using the model to underpin its economic development strategy. Many other cities are also moving towards adopting this powerful and fascinating tool for reimagining cities and their economies. Our question in this episode, your mind-expanding piece of su...

Allow me to present one of my very favourite episodes of ‘From What If to What Next’ thus far. The question we explore is ‘What if imagination were a universal right?’ It emerges from the argument in ‘From What Is to What If’ that imagination is, to a degree, a function of privilege, and that we need to create the conditions for everyone to be able to live a life rich in imagination. But how do qu...

This fifth episode of 'From What If to What Next' has the longest title of any of our shows thus far! It was sent in by subscriber Chris Wells. As we start, hopefully, to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately affected older people, many people have experienced an end to their lives that was lonely and traumatic. How different would the world feel if its priorities had cha...

In our fourth episode, we bring together two of the UK's most pioneering doctors to explore what a very different future for healthcare could be like. What would it be like if doctors' surgeries were key players in the wider Transition of the community, actively stimulating a reimagining of food, energy, community and much more? In this episode we are joined by Dr Jane Myat, doing amazing work at...

FWIWN3.mp3 In this third episode of 'From What If to What Next', we're talking about food. Taking a question from Patreon subscriber Tony Buck, we are asking "What If towns and cities set out to intentionally relocalise their food production?" How would it work? Where would you start? How would you involve the local government? How would you ensure that it is inclusive? To explore this complex que...

In this second episode of 'From What If to What Next', we're talking about Universal Basic Income with Alexis Frasz, researcher and cultural strategist with Helicon Collaborative, and Phil Teer, author of 'The Coming Age of Imagination'. What would it be like to live in a world in which UBI was now an integral part of everyday life? How would life, and the world around us feel different? How might...

Welcome to this, the first ever episode of 'From What If to What Next'. In this first episode, we meet singer, curator, event creator and lover of birdsong Sam Lee, speaking to us direct from a birdsong-filled forest, and Mya-Rose Craig, also known as 'Birdgirl', who is doing amazing work promoting birdwatching among young people and promoting BME engagement with the natural world. Subscribe to th...

Here is a taster of Episode One of 'From What If to What Next', my new podcast series. You can unlock this full episode, as well the exclusive 'Ministry of Imagination' podcast, and other exclusives, by subscribing at www.patreon.com/fromwhatiftowhatnext. This first episode speaks to Sam Lee and Mya-Rose Craig, and is deeply lovely.

In 2011 I gave a talk at Bristol Colston Hall, which as someone who had grown up in Bristol, was hallowed ground. The talk opens with a Captain Beefheart anecdote I am rather fond of.

On Sunday 20th October, at Battersea Arts Centre, following an incredible day of 'Pop Up Tomorrow', I launched 'From What Is to What If'. Here is the audio of the evening, which also features appearances by improv expert Jeremy Finch and Ruth Sapsed of Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination. I hope it gives you an inspiring taste of the evening.

One of the very best books I read while researching 'From What Is to What If' was 'Free to Learn' by Peter Gray. Peter is an evolutionary psychologist who taught for 30 years at Boston College as a Professor. He is now retired from teaching but still does research on children’s learning and children’s development.  'Free to Learn' became the most-underlined book out of all the books I read, rich i...

One of the perks of running this website and of writing 'From What Is to What If' has been the opportunity to speak to some of the people who have had the biggest impact on my own imagination. Today's interviewee, John Crowley, is one of those people. I first read his novel 'Little, Big' sometime in the mid-1980s, and it blew me away. About a year later, I met the woman who was later to become my...

One of the finest books I’ve read recently was ‘Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter’ by Ben Goldfarb. Ben is an American environmental journalist who has taken great interest in this remarkable creature and its ability to, as he put it when we spoke, “help tackle many of our ecological problems if we just get out of the way and let the rodent do the work”.  I was fasc...

The frogs singing outside my bedroom window in La Farlède by Rob Hopkins

When I started writing what is now called 'From What Is to What If', the first person I spoke to was Lucy Neal. And now, as the process enters its final editing stage, the last person I'm interviewing for it is Lucy  Neal. Lucy is one of the most imaginative people I know, and is hugely skilful at bringing that imagination out into the world. She is the author of the seminal book 'Playing For Time...

What follows is my conversation with Michele D’Alena, Director of the Civic Imagination Office. It is a multi-professional team working to build a creative bridge between the citizens of Bologna and the administration. Michele has worked for the municipality for the past 6 years, and for the past two years within the Fondazione per l'Innovazione Urbana, in charge of the Civic Imagination Office. I...

We recently spoke to Andrew Brewerton, Principal at Plymouth College of Art, about the fascinating tale of how Plymouth School of Creative Arts came to be. PSCA is a remarkable new school which puts the cultivation of the imagination at its heart, even down to how its striking new building was conceived and designed. Before Christmas I visited the school and sat down to chat with then-Head Teacher...

Storytelling is a powerful political tool.  Becoming better storytellers has been shown to make a huge difference to the impact and efficacy of activist groups and campaigns. The Centre for Story-Based Strategy ("where imagination builds power") are pioneers in this field. They work with groups giving them the tools to make the most of the power of imagination, building their capacity to intervene...

There’s a lot of talk about Citizen’s Assemblies these days. Some people say, as the UK flounders to try and find a way through the wreckage of Brexit, that it should have done Citizens’ Assemblies in advance of any vote. Some say they should happen now, to decide the next steps forward. Citizens Assemblies are a powerful tool for hearing the thoughts of a population without the filter of politica...

This post is the first of two that will be exploring the story of Plymouth School of Creative Arts, a remarkable new school in the south west of England. It is a fascinating example of a school designed around the nurturing of imagination, right in the heart of one of the UK's most deprived cities. In this post, I speak to Andrew Brewerton, Principal at Plymouth College of Art, one of the key peop...

I would like to think that when I reach the end of my life that I will have very few regrets. I know that I will have one though, which is that I was not in London on Thursday May 4th 2006, and for the days that followed. For those 4 days, a huge puppet elephant and an 8 metre-tall girl, walked around the city, entrancing and charming the million or so people who came to see them. It was a magical...

The scholar Richard Sennett once wrote, “modern capitalism works by colonizing people’s imagination of what is possible”. If it is the case that our current economic model thrives by creating the conditions that suppress rather than unleash the imagination, and if we recognise that now, more than any other time, we need a mass re-nourishing of the collective imagination, then where might we spot e...

Earlier in this series of interviews, I spoke to Dr Larry Rosen who told me, "I would say that our imagination is probably on the decline, exactly in the opposite trend of our time spent on our smart phone". If, as I've been recently musing, our imaginations need time and space, and much of that time and space is currently being sucked up by smartphones, social media and  our online lives, then wh...