Welcome to explore the world of futures studies through the fresh new voices of students!
For a few years now, the teachers of the FFRC have selected cool student essays from various courses. These collections "Coolest Student Papers at the FFRC" include some of the most interesting student papers that have been submitted on futures studies and sustainable development courses offered by the University of Turku and Finland Futures Academy.
The reason behind this annual publication is that our students devote a great deal of effort to write high-quality papers, and therefore it is fair to give an opportunity to publish the most interesting papers for a larger audience. These collections provide a kind of public forum to consider futures studies from novel and interesting student perspectives. Of course, only a small selection of many high-quality student papers can be included in these volumes.
These annual collections are divided into sections according to courses. Each section begins with an introduction to that particular course and the papers selected from the course. Courses range from systems thinking and sustainable development to futures research methods and futures of democracy. Most papers are in English, but there are also papers in Finnish. The papers can be read in any order based on personal interest, but reading the course introductions provides valuable context for the papers.
We hope that you enjoy reading these student papers as much as our teachers did.