Published May 6, 2026 | Version Report from Day 1 of the Responsible Futures Skills Lab, held at Newcastle University Business School, 6–7 May 2026.
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Teaching for Responsible Futures: Report from the Responsible Futures Skills Lab, 6 May 2026

Authors/Creators

  • 1. ROR icon Newcastle University
  • 2. ROR icon University of Sunderland
  • 3. ROR icon Ravensbourne University London
  • 4. Climate Play
  • 5. ROR icon Erasmus University Rotterdam
  • 6. ROR icon University of Auckland
  • 7. ROR icon Durham University
  • 8. ROR icon University of Leeds
  • 9. ROR icon University of Glasgow

Description

This report summarises the insights from Day 1 of the Responsible Futures Skills Lab, held at Newcastle University Business School on 6 May 2026. The day focused on teaching for responsible futures and explored how sustainability, ethics, responsibility, and futures thinking can be meaningfully embedded in business and management education. Bringing together educators, pedagogical innovators, external partners, and cross-disciplinary colleagues, the event examined how teaching can move beyond content delivery toward transformative learning, reflection, student agency, and institutional change. Sessions addressed a range of pedagogical approaches, including climate simulation, LEGO® Serious Play®, SDG-based reflection, the Better Business Scan, scenario exploration, systems simulation, and the Poster Method. Across the discussions, contributors emphasised that pedagogical tools are not solutions in themselves, but entry points for helping students experience complexity, surface assumptions, engage with uncertainty, and translate responsible futures challenges into action. The report identifies seven key insights: responsible futures education begins with experiencing complexity; tools require facilitation and debriefing; reflection turns experience into learning; assessment should capture shifts in thinking; students need agency as well as awareness; interdisciplinary teaching requires translation work; and institutional systems must reward the pedagogical work they claim to value. The report offers practical implications for educators, programme leaders, business schools, and professional communities seeking to strengthen responsible management education.

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Teaching for Responsible Futures Report.pdf

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