Academic texts, essays, stories and reviews, from the Journal of Futures Studies to my own blog. Sorted by type, newest first within each type, each with a short summary. Most of them are in German.
Academic texts
Contributions to journals, platforms and libraries of futures studies. They address the field and ask how futures studies works and how it should work.
Essay Journal of Futures Studies, July 2026
Applied Critical Futures Studies: Stance Before Method
The essay calls for an additional quality criterion in academic futures studies and applied foresight: epistemological reflexivity. This means the ability to recognise one's own epistemological stance, understand its limits and deliberately switch between stances. Jonas Drechsel draws on Sohail Inayatullah's distinction between predictive, cultural and critical epistemologies and on Nele Fischer and Sascha Dannenberg's understanding of plausibility. According to the essay, existing quality criteria check how methods are carried out, while the stance behind them goes unexamined. As a practical form, the text presents the Kritik-Kreisel with its movements of disrupting, understanding, exploring and changing, illustrated by an EU foresight platform and a scenario project for the insurance industry. The essay openly names its own limits, such as its roots in German civil society and evidence from around nine Missionswerkstatt workshops that rests on practical experience rather than systematic documentation.
Read ↗: Applied Critical Futures Studies: Stance Before MethodCritical Futures Studies →
Article Futures4Europe, November 2024
Risks and merits of Decolonising futures
This English-language article gives an overview of the debate on decolonising futures. It starts with the working notes of the Diaspora Futures Collective on what decolonising the future involves, such as questioning methods with military or corporate origins. Drawing on Tuck and Yang, it warns against a merely metaphorical use of the term, which historically stands for the return of Indigenous land. Jonas Drechsel traces how futures studies has worked on the topic for more than 50 years, from Robert Jungk via Jim Dator and Sohail Inayatullah to Ziauddin Sardar. As approaches from practice he names Causal Layered Analysis, Pupul Bisht's storytelling tool and the Decolonized Futures project. His conclusion: futures are never neutral, non-Western voices are involved too rarely, and the many initiatives should connect their experiences in greater solidarity.
Read ↗: Risks and merits of Decolonising futures
Factsheet Robert-Jungk-Bibliothek für Zukunftsfragen, Robert Jungk scholarship, in German, September 2021
Möglichkeiten als Bedingung für andere, utopische Zukünfte
The factsheet documents how Jonas Drechsel, as a Robert Jungk scholar, translated his master's thesis on shaping the future into a usable tool. It starts from the thesis that possibilities for other futures are often overlooked in everyday life because of routines, habits and thinking errors. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann, the text describes a realised utopia of having no alternative, in which systems reproduce themselves. It describes shaping the future in four steps: understanding the status quo, developing impossible-but-desirable alternatives, acting, and analysing the new status quo again. The first two steps make up the shaping of possibilities. The result is a card game on Miro with 30 cards that translates the thematic clusters of the master's thesis into questions about the status quo. The text itself names the limits of the prototype, including a difficult entry point and a high level of abstraction.
Read ↗: Möglichkeiten als Bedingung für andere, utopische ZukünfteCritical Futures Studies →
Research project Master's programme in Futures Studies, FU Berlin (Refubium), ISBN 978-3-944843-34-6, in German, 2020
Zukünfte der Gruppenarbeiten: pluralistisch, transdisziplinär und gestaltend?
This research project from the master's programme asks what people need to work well together in groups. It started from experiences in the programme's 2017 cohort, where the importance of transdisciplinarity was stressed from the outset. Methodologically, the work follows Leuphana University's approach to transdisciplinary research with systems, target and transformation knowledge. It is based on more than 80 index cards on topics such as constructivism, the capacity for critique and process design, and on eleven conversations of around four hours each with everyday experts. From this comes a guide for pluralistic, transdisciplinary and shaping groups. It covers hierarchies, shared goals, emotions, conflicts, trust and reflection, among other things, each with a guiding question and tips for the group.
Read ↗: Zukünfte der Gruppenarbeiten: pluralistisch, transdisziplinär und gestaltend?
Essays and guest articles
Texts for a wider audience: magazines, specialist portals and the Third Wave conversations. They translate futures studies into political and business questions.
Two essays Neue Gesellschaft Frankfurter Hefte and Einbildungskanal, in German, 2024 and 2026
Democracy and community, thought further
Two texts about spaces in which society becomes slower, more shared and more able to act. One asks how an overheated democracy can be cooled down. The other tells how clubs with randomly selected councils become places where society develops.
Neue Gesellschaft Frankfurter Hefte 7/8, July 2026
The essay links the heatwaves of summer 2026 with a political overheating in which outrage replaces orientation. Figures on MPs' professional backgrounds and on satisfaction with democracy show why the story of a hollowed-out democracy feels plausible to many. According to the text, right-wing narratives pick up real shortcomings and misread their causes. Using Kim Stanley Robinson's “The Ministry for the Future”, Jonas Drechsel shows that protection from heat requires contested decisions about shade, unsealing surfaces and parking spaces. As a remedy he proposes cooling stations for democracy: citizens' assemblies, future workshops after Robert Jungk, clubs and neighbourhoods that work at the pace of understanding. Short scenes from summer 2035 in Berlin, Leipzig, Aachen and Halle show what such spaces could look like.
Einbildungskanal, March 2024, with Ilan Siebert
This speculative story sees clubs and communities as places where society comes into being. It proposes community councils chosen by lot as a low-threshold form of participation. Seb runs a council of 20 members drawn by lot in his billiards club and meets the scepticism of other board members at the Community Congress 2028. A personal invitation, two Sundays of time and a clear task make the first council a success. Three more councils later bring about a higher membership fee and a second team. A chair of a regional chamber of commerce association adopts the format for her office. The text was written with the sortition activist Ilan Siebert and ends with the principle “good enough for now, safe enough to try”.
Two guest articles GREEN.WORKS, in German, 2026
Zukunftsforschung für die nachhaltige Transformation
Two parts of a three-part series for sustainability managers. The third part, Planet Centric Design in der Praxis, is by Georg Jänchen.
GREEN.WORKS, February 2026
This guest article is aimed at sustainability managers whose strategies fail at the gap between paper and implementation. Jonas Drechsel presents seven tools: treating futures as something to negotiate, getting concrete, uncovering myths, using trends as arguments, telling real utopias, using science fiction as inspiration, and moving from scenarios to missions. Examples include Rügenwalder Mühle's vegetarian sausage, Amsterdam's doughnut economy and Copenhagen's path to climate neutrality. Causal Layered Analysis is meant to make visible the world views behind positions within a company. For communication, the text recommends success stories over demands. It ends with the distinction between an abstract vision and a concrete mission with milestones, resources and responsibilities.
GREEN.WORKS, May 2026
The article goes deeper into one of the seven hacks, working with trends, using planet-centric design as an example. Human-centred design asks what people want, planet-centric design first asks what the planet needs. Jonas Drechsel compares this shift to the Copernican turn and names bee-centric design as a tangible example. In a research project for a German corporation, the approach became visible as a weak signal because common framings of sustainability were seen there as too demanding. The text argues that trend work helps build reality and that weak signals offer better raw material for this than overcrowded megatrends. According to the article, planet-centric design becomes strategically relevant as soon as the question about the planet frames the question about human wishes.
Essay transform Magazin, first published on Einbildungskanal, in German, December 2022
Wie wir Utopien verwirklichen
The essay describes shaping the future as a triad of utopia, vision and real utopia. Jonas Drechsel explains it through his father's recovery after an accident at work. Historical examples show that change rests on this interplay, from workers' struggles to the referendum on protecting non-smokers to the minimum wage. The text sets out the formula “shaping the future = shaping possibilities + shaping reality” and draws on Erik Olin Wright's real utopias. As Berlin examples it names Kiezbett, Soulbottles, Mein Grundeinkommen, the Möckernkiez cooperative and citizens' assemblies chosen by lot. It closes with five recommendations, including solidarity, patience and a look at one's own power to shape things.
Read ↗: Wie wir Utopien verwirklichen
Two conversation pieces Third Wave on Medium, in German, 2021
Third Wave Insight Talks
As a senior researcher at Third Wave, Jonas Drechsel wrote up conversations with colleagues on future topics. Both texts capture the state of a conversation about a much-debated future topic.
Medium, December 2021, conversation with Johannes Kleske
The text traces the history of the metaverse idea, from the cyberspace of 1980s science fiction via virtual reality to the debate about web3. Its central thesis is that the metaverse is above all a narrative construct meant to sell a particular future and create a sense of inevitability. Using Yuval Harari as an example, it shows how critique can confirm Silicon Valley's premises when it takes that future as a given. From this follows the call to examine real alternatives to the metaverse. Variants within the metaverse are not enough for that.
Medium, November 2021, conversation with Igor Schwarzmann
Many people buy their car for rare extreme cases such as long holiday drives, although around 90 per cent of everyday journeys could easily be done electrically. The text treats plug-in hybrids as a transitional technology whose benefit depends on whether people actually drive electrically in everyday life. Other topics are the tax breaks for company cars, the link between e-mobility and autonomous driving, and the ecological consequences of lithium batteries. The conclusion: the mobility mix of the future needs subsidies for what benefits people and the environment. Add to that an understanding of individual special cases.
Storytelling
Science fiction, future reports and the original text for White Mirror. This is where the future gets told rather than explained.
Five stories Einbildungskanal, in German, June and July 2026
White Mirror Stories
Five test runs of the White Mirroring method from the Future of News Fellowship at Media Lab Bayern. Each story builds a reachable future from documented signals of the present and tells it through a character. Several texts were written in dialogue with Claude, which is noted at the start of each one.
June 2026
In the fictional town of Greifenau in the early 2050s, democracy with sortition and assemblies has become an everyday practice.
June 2026
Against the narrative “AI is taking illustrators' jobs”, the story tells of the illustrator Jule, whose images carry a seal of origin. The starting thesis comes from a workshop with the Illustratoren Organisation.
June 2026
A future report from the early 2040s about a company in steward ownership, told through the skilled worker Aylin, with a list of sources.
June 2026
Halle an der Saale in March 2033: Marit Czerwinski curates council meetings, against the narrative “every situation splits into two sides”.
July 2026
A reporter from 2026 travels to Hagen in the early 2050s, a city that has turned its economic decline into the role of a learning city.
White Mirror →
Two short stories Springer VS and One Day in 2050, 2024
Science fiction
Two short stories from worlds to come, both in anthologies with many authors.
With Johannes Wirz. Springer VS, Regenerative Zukünfte und künstliche Intelligenz, Volume 2: PEOPLE, 2024, in German
This thought experiment shows, in an ambiguous way, how decentralised utopias from below can be valuable for people and nature, even if these processes remain contested. It documents the learning journey of young Nuki, who for all her talent first has to learn how to set change in motion. On the hyperloop, Snow tries to win her over to a powerful technology alliance. A travel companion makes the case for a network of cities with a community approach. Nuki comes from the countryside, where little of the celebrated innovation has arrived and heat shapes everyday life. The story tells change as an interplay of empowerment and personal initiative. Its thesis: people need powerful support to be able to do the right thing.
In: Clima Utopyas, One Day in 2050, one of 25 cli-fi stories about a utopian society in 2050, in English, September 2024
The story is set on 4 June 2050 in a world where BigTwenT, the twenty most powerful corporations and states, work hand in hand and lose touch with people along the way. Jane has 25 precarious years in the countryside behind her and is the first of her clan to take the hyperloop to a megacity of the C200 city network, which aims to reconnect rural regions. In the centre she finds flashing consumption and flickering holograms. In a side street, a young woman shows her how residents use an evolved form of liquid democracy to vote continuously on whatever matters right now. With feedback from the community, Jane's loose idea becomes a concrete project within a few hours, and three volunteers want to support her. Whether it gets approved and how it works out back home, the story leaves open.
Essay Einbildungskanal, in German, January 2024
White Mirror: Ein Gedankenspiel mit Hoffnung
The original text for White Mirror grew out of the question of a TV show that will never exist. Jonas Drechsel answers with a counterpart to Black Mirror. Drawing on Fred Polak, he argues that images of the future exert a pull, which is why dystopias reinforce hopelessness and passivity. For him, a hope-giving White Mirror must not be a perfect counter-image; he calls for a grey-and-colourful, strongly contextualised utopia. As references he names Judith Mangelsdorf's realistic optimism and Erik Olin Wright's real utopias. Four stories from his own circles serve as examples, from Kiezbett's beds made of regional wood to the Möckernkiez cooperative. Their weaknesses are discussed too.
Read ↗: White Mirror: Ein Gedankenspiel mit HoffnungWhite Mirror →
Short story Einbildungskanal, for coronafutures.de, in German, May 2020
2035: Ein Tagtraum
The text was written for coronafutures.de and describes a utopian day in 2035. It is told from the perspective of a man of around 50 who lives in a collective. An unconditional basic income and a minimum day rate have ended exploitation in the gig economy. Working time is organised around processes, and conflicts are moderated through conversation. Natural raw materials from the region cover most needs, and technology continues to be used sensibly. After coronavirus, society has reduced power and domination to a minimum.
Read ↗: 2035: Ein Tagtraum
On Einbildungskanal
My blog since 2020, in German. The 2026 essays were written in dialogue with the language model Claude, which is noted at the start of each text. The series “Auf ein Wort” (a word, please) explores terms I consider important.
Essay Einbildungskanal, written in dialogue with Claude, February 2026
Was machen Zukunftsforscher*innen? Eine Bestandsaufnahme jenseits der einfachen Antworten
The essay describes futures studies as a field of different practices without shared standards. Scientific, market and political-normative logics each produce a futures studies of their own. The text shows this with two scenario projects on urban mobility. The separation of analysis and design dissolves in practice, because every statement about the future intervenes in present-day negotiations. Since most futurists live off commissions, the market acts as a filter for perspectives with money behind them. What is needed, then, is switching between modes; futurists work in the spaces between science and consulting.
Read ↗: Was machen Zukunftsforscher*innen? Eine Bestandsaufnahme jenseits der einfachen Antworten
Essay Einbildungskanal, written in dialogue with Claude, February 2026
Ohne Agency: Der Stuhl bleibt, wo er steht
Using the image of a row of chairs that is never rearranged, the essay describes a lack of agency as the norm. Familiar arrangements turn into apparent givens, reinforced by limited attention and unspoken hierarchies. As a second mechanism, the text criticises the promise of self-optimisation, which sells adaptation as empowerment. At the same time, it warns progressives against rejecting individual responsibility altogether. According to the essay, agency arises from desire, the perception of a discrepancy and the ability to act; it starts with the self and builds a we on top of it. Through his own path from entering futures studies in 2017 to advising the EU in 2022, Jonas Drechsel shows agency as a long-term project.
Read ↗: Ohne Agency: Der Stuhl bleibt, wo er steht
Essay Einbildungskanal, written in dialogue with Claude, February 2026
Die Klimabewegung in der langen Dauer
Using Fernand Braudel's concept of the longue durée, the essay examines the German climate movement along three axes: the state, social composition and cultural framings. German corporatism ties associations and the Greens into institutions and rewards moderation. Coal and nuclear power shaped the movement, and the 2011 nuclear phase-out appears as the late realisation of a movement goal. The coal phase-out was slow because coal had the trade unions on its side. From bourgeois homeland protection to Fridays for Future, the text argues, the movement remains shaped by the middle class. The ending sets Germany's emissions, almost halved since 1990, against global emissions, which have risen by more than 60 per cent.
Read ↗: Die Klimabewegung in der langen Dauer
Essay Einbildungskanal, written in dialogue with Claude, February 2026
Claude: Die Plausibilisierungsmaschine
After almost a year of intensive work with the language model, Jonas Drechsel concludes: everything sounds plausible, even when it is wrong. The model invented things such as researchers' first names and budget figures. The text distinguishes plausibility as a property of statements from truth as a relationship between statement and world. It names five warning signs that apply beyond AI too: smoothness, missing provenance, interchangeability, missing counter-arguments and structural perfection. As evidence it uses the first draft of this very text, in which the model turned a single case into an average figure. The heuristic at the end: the more important a decision, the more friction with the world.
Read ↗: Claude: Die Plausibilisierungsmaschine
Essay Einbildungskanal, written in dialogue with Claude, February 2026
Handeln ohne Garantie: Für eine Ethik des Erkundens
The essay criticises the demand to define a vision first and act afterwards. In complex undertakings, clarity comes from acting itself. The text describes the guarantee of impact required in funding applications and strategies as a blockade on action. Drawing on Hannah Arendt, it distinguishes action, whose outcome is uncertain, from making. Pierre Bourdieu's habitus and Herbert Simon's bounded rationality support the thesis that acting under uncertainty is the norm. As an alternative, Jonas Drechsel proposes a pull: qualities instead of states, images instead of plans, longing as a compass and incompleteness as a strength. An architecture of hope combines the basic attitude that things can turn out well with real utopias and critical futures studies.
Read ↗: Handeln ohne Garantie: Für eine Ethik des Erkundens
Essay Einbildungskanal, written in dialogue with Claude, February 2026
Das sympathische Gesicht des Krieges: Florence Gaub und die Grenzen medialer Zukunftsforschung
The essay pushes back against the delight in parts of futures studies about Florence Gaub's media visibility. It places her career in security policy institutions such as the NATO Defense College and describes her work as strategic foresight in the service of institutions. It criticises her book “Zukunft: Eine Bedienungsanleitung” for lacking references to the history of futures studies. On top of that comes a shift in the discourse: military logic as future competence, rearmament as the norm and a soft tone for a liberal audience. Gaub appears as a symptom of a media logic that rewards self-assurance. What remains open is the price a discipline pays for visibility it does not control itself.
Read ↗: Das sympathische Gesicht des Krieges: Florence Gaub und die Grenzen medialer Zukunftsforschung
Essay Einbildungskanal, in word ping-pong with Julia Wallner, June 2021
Auf ein Wort #4: Zukünfte
The text argues for speaking of futures in the plural. According to Jonas Drechsel, talk of the one future distracts from our own power to shape it, for instance when markets and data are supposed to bring the future about. Drawing on Reinhold Popp, he argues that mental health requires the ability to imagine a change for the better. He distinguishes present futures, today's images of what is to come, from future presents, which nobody has access to. With Jennifer Gidley, he calls for recognising and challenging business as usual. Examples show how companies or experts treat a single future as a given.
Read ↗: Auf ein Wort #4: ZukünfteIn the glossary →
Essay Einbildungskanal, in word ping-pong with Julia Wallner, January 2021
Auf ein Wort #1: Ambiguitätstoleranz
The first text in the series “Auf ein Wort” describes tolerance of ambiguity as the ability to endure ambiguity and uncertainty. Jonas Drechsel argues against the early interpretation of it as a fixed personality trait; the ability can be trained. Polarisation, for example in the coronavirus debate, makes communication break down. Using Friedemann Schulz von Thun's inner team, the text shows that ambiguity is also at work inside a person. Examples range from the film “Tenet” to an encounter in which a first impulse towards distance gave way to a conversation. It ends with the limits of tolerance in the face of hurtful statements and with Ursula K. Le Guin's ambiguous utopia as a model.
Read ↗: Auf ein Wort #1: AmbiguitätstoleranzIn the glossary →
