Welcome to this collaboratorium for the co-evolution of cities, economies, ecologies, technologies and societies…

Firstly – here’s to introduce a new  ‘Atlas of the Future’ , a next-generation ‘Pathway Language’, a user’s ‘Rough Guide to the 21st century’ ….

Deeper City

For synopses & samples see – THE BOOK  

(Some ask about the cover image – borrowed from the Mind-Games of Chapter 11, this shows a semi-fictional Deeper Mind Lab, experimenting at the frontiers with the world’s most powerful Large Think-onomic Synthesizer…)

For reviews / endorsements see Deeper City Reviews

For the post-script on Pandemic-III there is visual ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking, on turning crisis into opportunity – MIND-GAMES – with briefings on Pandemic 3.0

The basic ideas of SYNERGISTICS follow on, with the insights of VISUAL THINKING.

Meanwhile…. 

the ‘official’ sister site – Synergistics@manchester has more on the collaboratorium…..

Conversations  and open debates, on ongoing program of collective learning and thinking

Co-productions  – an emerging portfolio of projects around the world, developing and testing the synergistic methods

RESOURCES on the 40 pathways – (in progress)

TOOLKITS and practical guides and playbooks

Also  – various materials….

•  Deeper City quick tour – overview of ideas, applications, themes
• a starter conversation –  Deeper cities wider views – Joe Ravetz with Effie Amanatidou – for the backstory and forward prospects
• an extract on the Deeper City – preview
• keynote on CHAI – ‘Collective Human-Artifical Intelligence’ –  to the International Smart City Forum in Shanghai at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference – WAIC-Joe-Ravetz.mp4   (with dual language script WAIC-Joe-Ravetz-Chinese-English)

The Collaboratorium

Deeper City is not only the result of a decade of experimentation – it’s also a resource for work in progress. As the global deeper threat multipliers pile up, the opportunities multiply up, for synergistic thinking for the ‘pathways from smart to wise’. So here is a prospectus for an emerging global Collaboratorium – a ‘Laboratory for collaborative pathways’…

The Collaboratorium is an evolving program with multiple locations, stakeholders, scientific fields, case studies and experiments. It builds on the ideas of collective intelligence in Deeper City, and follows those insights on synergistic mapping and pathway design.

The Collaboratorium starts with a series of Mind-Labs.  These are open exploratory dialogues, which explore the scope of collective intelligence, and start the process of pathway mapping in each case, whether food or finance, pandemics or prosperity…  Each Mind-Lab follows the principles and methods of synergistic thinking in a flexible and creative way.  Each one has three main aims:

·         Explore the scope of collective intelligence for the selected issue

·         Start the mapping of synergistic pathways which can lead towards it

·         Debate strategy, resources, and practical next steps

The Mind-Labs at present are online, but we aim to move back ‘on-site’ as soon as safe and practical.  There are some benefits online (lower carbon / easier participation), compared to onsite.  Generally we use the synergistic toolkit, for visual systems thinking, at www.manchester.ac.uk/synergistics.   This is now online in a prototype version: see the sample interactive collaboratorium-demo.

The next events are now taking shape as follows…

Conversations – summary program

Here is a summary of launch / Mind-lab events (as of Spring 2021):

see Conversations  for details and registrations.

(Note – “3.0”  is shorthand here for ‘Mode-III collective intelligence’:  times are shown for UK – check for local equivalents).

ECO-WISE THEME

• Green new deal 3.0 – how to do carbon neutral / net-zero pathways that really work?? (with EC-JRC): March 26^th 1200 GMT
•  Bio-regional 3.0  : how to tame the global tiger? (with Univ Granada & UC San Diego): May 27^th ;
• (Peri-cene.net/  Policy Lab workshops): interactive sessions, also open for special interests (dates tbc in June-July);
• Food 3.0 – how to link agro-ecology, super-food & urban livelihood? (with Camley St Community Land Trust): Sept 24^th;
• Eco-wise collaboratorium – proposal for interactive workshop at the COP26:  November 2021 tbc

SMART-WISE THEME

• Smart-wise cities 3.0 How to design ‘smarter’ technology to enable ‘wiser’ human systems?  (with Shanghai SCDI): Feb 26^th: 0930 GMT
  
• Smart-wise-Locality 3.0 – how to take smart-wise governance to the streets? practical applications on the urban frontline (with Manchester City Council): June 25^th
• ‘Making CHAI’ (Collective Human-Artificial Intelligence): how to turn tech disruption into social opportunity? (tbc) June 25^th
• ‘Smart-wise 3.0’ forward look’: synthesis & co-production: what next? Dec 3^rd

FORE-WISE THEME

• ‘Foresight-city/region 3.0 – how to do next generation policy & planning? practical applications in urban & regional development; (with HSE  Moscow): April 14^th1330 GMT 
• Foresight from theory to practice’: Training capacity building & skills sharing (at HSE): April-June
• ‘Pandemonics 3.0’: who & how to trust scientific knowledge in an age of disruption?: adaptive pathways for co-existence (with ISIS), July 9 (tbc)
• ‘Empowerment 3.0’: how to mobilize social innovation & cultural capital with Foresight 3.0?: (with HSE) Nov 26^th
• ‘Foresight 3.0 pathways’: how to put theory / practice together & what next? Dec 17^th

PREVIOUS EVENTS –

(resources are available on the links, feedback is welcome, and various follow-ups are in progress)

• Oct 20^th: Lo-co-gov-3.0:  Many voted to ‘take back control’ – but what and where is this control? We need new models for local collaborative governance and ‘living labs’ (in combination with the Looper project).
• Oct 23^rd: Deeper Covi-city 3.0 in action: exploring the potential of social innovation & policy networks based on a ‘collective urban intelligence’ (hosted by Universidade Autonoma Baja California, Mexicali).
• Oct 30^th: Green New Deal 3.0: redirecting economic recovery with ‘collective carbon intelligence’ – how to get the science/tech, economics, politics, culture, psychology and urban systems all working together?
• Nov 4^th: Civic design 3.0: for the remaking / rethinking of cities, we need ‘planning but not as we know it’, on the principles of ‘collective urban intelligence’; (hosted by the World Planning Day in S Africa);
• Nov 12^th: Foresight 3.0 in action:  exploring the potential of ‘collective anticipatory intelligence’, with new ‘game-changer’ methods (hosted by Higher School of Economics, Moscow).
• Nov 20-21^st: Food 3.0:  less land / more people?? exploring collective food intelligence for global-local agri-food systems, combining hi-tech with ancient wisdom (hosted by Alara Wholefoods London).
• Dec 4th:  Smart-wise cities 3.0:  If the price of smart city AI is surveillance and oppression, let’s talk about Collective Human-Artificial Intelligence (with the Shanghai Pudong Smart City Research Institute).
• Dec 11^th: Peri-cene 3.0: around 1/3 million arrive every week in the peri-urban zone, in the path of fire, flood, drought & storm… what do we know and what can be done?? (east/west split session: in combination with the Peri-cene project).
• Sept 18^th: Anti-city 3.0: ‘Cities but not as we know them’: collective peri-urban intelligence in a fragmented world (hosted by the Auroville Institute for Sustainable Architecture, India).
• Sept 11^th: Deeper Covi-City 3.0: the pandemic has brought conflicts to the surface, but also potential for transformation – here we explore the ‘collective urban intelligence’ in turning crisis into opportunity.
• Sept 4^th: Foresight 3.0:  amidst disruption and turbulence, how to look and plan ahead? This calls for futures / foresight methods with next generation learning & thinking built in.
• August 25^th: Pandemic-city 3.0:  the post Covid-19 urban agenda, ‘from crisis to transformation’ (hosted by the South African Centre for Cities).

Prospects for the Collaboratorium

At this point the field of possibilities is wide open… especially at this time of disruption and uncertainty.  These are the main avenues to follow:

·         Conversations: a continuing program of collective learning, thinking, creation and co-production; by dialogue and deliberation and visualization;

–      Co-productions:   where synergistic methods are developed and tested in projects from around the world.  A major grant application is in progress

·         Communities:  a global inter-connected network (i.e. ‘meshwork’) of like-minded ‘pathway mappers’, in many places, fields and sectors;

·         Platform:  an open online hub for the emerging collective intelligence, with libraries, resources, examples, ideas and contacts;

·         Multi-versities:  as this work develops in particular places or fields, an integrated ‘multi-versity’ may begin to emerge – an intensive cluster / mesh-work / community, where everyone can learn with, by, and from everyone.

Overall the Collaboratorium aims to mobilize the huge potential for turning crisis to opportunity and transformation... 

To keep in touch or register an interest in the Collaboratorium and any advance events  – please put your details here, and we will be in touch –