SAVE THE DATE for our webinar on social innovation and prefiguration around the world | 10.06.2026 

What forms of social innovation and prefigurative movements are bubbling up across the world, beyond the over-representation of the Global North in social innovation discourse? We are creating space to sense and co-sense these patterns through a vibrant webinar, inviting practitioners, innovators, citizens, activists, creators, and researchers to share their experiences and work. Register here to our webinar.

In collaboration with Dr. Maréve Biljohn from the University of the Free State in South Africa, whose work intertwines social innovation, citizen participation in governmental spaces, and Ubuntu, together with colleagues from Utrecht University, the initiative is hosted by the POTRANSI research project on power dynamics in transformative social innovation in collaboration with platform Bottom-up Initiatives for Societal Change and sponsored by Institutions for Open Societies. This co-created collaboration becomes a vibrant meeting point where voices from the Global North and Global South can encounter and learn from one another.

We gather around the pluriverse, that living practice and theory of multiple co-existing worlds, cosmovisions, and ontologies that push back against singular, universal “sustainability” solutions. This framing invites speakers to bring their full perspectives on social innovation and prefigurative movements, explicitly welcoming epistemologies and practices from around the world.

The webinar will feature four speakers, each bringing their unique perspectives and experiences:

• Dr. Gustavo A García-López
• Dr. Neha Mungekar
• Mr. Joshua Konkankoh
• Dr. Maréve Biljohn

The webinar would be centered around the following guiding questions:

• What forms of social innovation and prefigurative movements exist around the world?
• What can we learn from pluriversal perspectives around social innovation and prefigurative movements for just and sustainable futures?
• How can we learn from one another in translocal solidarity?

The purpose of our webinar is to:

• Sensing what forms of social innovation and prefigurative movements exist around the world — co-sensing the patterns and activities
• Help address the over-representation of social innovation and prefigurative movements from the Global North, and engage with the under-documented social innovation and prefigurative movements from the Global South
• Learn from one another through theory, practice, and other examples of social innovation and prefigurative implementation
• Engaging with pluriversal perspectives of social innovation and prefigurative movements and learning in friction

Register to our webinar via the form here.