Institute For The Future

Governance Futures Lab—reinventing civic society

If government as we’ve known it isn’t working, how do we fix it? We must create and cultivate 
new systems for democracy.

IFTF’s Governance Futures Lab brings together futures thinkers, technologists, philanthropists, designers, policymakers, and social innovators to re-imagine governance. Our goal is to design and prototype governance systems that can meet the complex global challenges of the 21st century.

Pockets of engaged citizens around the world are already leveraging network technologies to prototype the future of governance. They are creating community free spaces, open data repositories, and collaborative investigative journalism platforms that reveal global crime and corruption. We work with these governance innovators and amplify their efforts, identify commonalities and connections between them, surface needs, and share what we learn with the wider public. We are building a vibrant community of thinkers and doers who together are sowing the seeds of a new governance infrastructure in support of a free, open, and equitable society.

Our research includes:

• New models for open, participatory governance, from global to hyper-local
• The future of journalism and computational propaganda
• Global security, safety, conflict, and privacy in the networked world
• Participatory economic systems that foster social and income equitability

• 2030: Artifacts from the Future of America’s Cities, Civic Io
• JAKE DUNAGAN: THE BIOLOGY OF DISINFORMATION, WEAPONIZED MEMES AND VIRAL ALT-FACTS, Plutopia News Network
• "Community leaders discuss city’s future during ‘Dayton in a Decade’ event", 2 NEWS WDTN