Arizona State University Center for the Science and the Imagination

The Center for Science and the Imagination is an interdisciplinary academic research center at Arizona State University that brings creative practice into conversation with scientific discovery and technological change. Established in 2012, it uses futures thinking, speculative fiction, worldbuilding, and transmedia storytelling to explore the social, ethical, and cultural implications of emerging science and technology.

Rather than treating fiction solely as entertainment, the center applies narrative and visual speculation as tools for technology assessment, public deliberation, and long-range thinking. Its work connects writers, artists, scholars, scientists, engineers, technologists, educators, and public audiences around questions of possible futures.

Research, publishing and public engagement

CSI develops and curates speculative narratives, anthologies, educational resources, events, and multimedia projects. Its published work includes Our Radioactive Neighbors, Climate Imagination: Dispatches from Hopeful Futures, Everything Change: An Anthology of Climate Fiction, Cities of Light, and Visions, Ventures, Escape Velocities.

Its media activity includes The Imagination Desk podcast and the Griots & Galaxies miniseries on African speculative fiction. Through the Veterans Imagination Project, participants collaborate with concept artists and narrative writers to create keyframe illustrations and speculative career scenarios.

Areas of practice

• Futures thinking and narrative foresight
• Speculative fiction, worldbuilding, and scenario visualization
• Technology assessment and science communication
• Climate futures and community co-design
• Informal STEM education and curricular toolkit development
• Audio, video, and transmedia production

CSI works across higher education, academic research, public policy and foresight, cultural institutions, philanthropy, and literary publishing. Its institutional, scientific, and philanthropic collaborators include NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Intel Labs, Google, the National Endowment for the Humanities, ClimateWorks Foundation, and the World Bank.

As an active ASU research center, CSI supports collaborative exploration of how imagination can help communities examine uncertainty, envision alternatives, and engage with consequential technological and environmental change.