Overview

This unit aims to explore the relationship between innovation, culture and sustainability, and the longer-term impact – both positive and negative – of innovation on future generations. Emphasising equity, diversity, and both individual and collective empowerment, it integrates a futures-focus to support more sustainable and responsible innovation. The unit introduces futures literacy and systems thinking, providing students with knowledge of contemporary concepts, tools and methods for envisioning alternative future scenarios. The unit includes both the theoretical and practical aspects of futures-focused innovation, and identifies how systems thinking and futures literacy are fundamental to sustainable innovation.

Teaching periods
Location
Start and end dates
Last self-enrolment date
Census date
Last withdraw without fail date
Results released date
Semester 2
Location
Hawthorn
Start and end dates
29-July-2024
27-October-2024
Last self-enrolment date
11-August-2024
Census date
31-August-2024
Last withdraw without fail date
13-September-2024
Results released date
03-December-2024
Semester 2
Location
Hawthorn
Start and end dates
04-August-2025
02-November-2025
Last self-enrolment date
17-August-2025
Census date
31-August-2025
Last withdraw without fail date
19-September-2025
Results released date
09-December-2025

Learning outcomes

Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:

  • Articulate interrelationships between innovation and environmental, social, technological and economic factors
  • Experiment with prospective methods and tools for alternative futures and scenario thinking
  • Critically reflect on the environmental and social impacts of innovation
  • Investigate opportunities for responsible innovation in complex, volatile and ambiguous contexts
  • Use futures literacy to reflect on real world artefacts and practices
  • Interrogate the long-term consequences of contemporary innovation practice

Teaching methods

Hawthorn

Type Hours per week Number of weeks Total (number of hours)
On-campus
Lab
3.00 12 weeks 36
Specified Activities
Various
2.00 12 weeks 24
Specified Activities
Various
4.00 12 weeks 48
Unspecified Activities
Independent Learning
3.50 12 weeks 42
TOTAL150

Assessment

Type Task Weighting ULO's
Project 1Group 30% 2,4,5 
Project 2Group 40% 1,2,3,4,5,6 
Reflective JournalIndividual 30% 1,3,5,6 

Content

This unit may include:

  • Tools and methods for sustainable innovation practice including Transition Design, carbon literacy, circular economy and Doughnut Economics
  • Systems thinking
  • Policies, legislation and protocols regarding risk and sustainability 
  • United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and respect for diversity of values and views as part of sustainability discourse 
  • Strategic foresight methods and tools including Futures Triangle, Futures Cone, STEEPLE, Harman Fan and The Thing From The Future

Study resources

Reading materials

A list of reading materials and/or required textbooks will be available in the Unit Outline on Canvas.