Sustainable Development and the Global South was a project jointly conceived by the Innovation School at Glasgow School of Art in partnership with the Sustainable Futures in Africa Network, and the University of Glasgow.

Graduating final year BDes Product Design students from the Innovation School were asked to consider the changing relationship between Sustainable Development and the Global South. Working with experts from the Sustainable Futures in Africa Network; the project’s partner, and academics at the University of Glasgow, the students explored what might happen in a global landscape ten years from now, where Sustainable Development has evolved to the extent that new forms of work transform how people engage, learn and interact with each other. The collection curates and displays the diverse range of future products, services and experiences designed by the cohort for the people who might one day live and work within these future contexts. Here the students worked with academics and inhabitants of communities across countries and contexts to explore a collaborative approach to the imagining of the future: to utilise the design skills of giving form, of visualising, of making tangible and shareable something as tricky to describe as the future. In doing so, they unleashed their own and their collaborators’ imaginations, creating possibilities that challenge our contemporary sense of the possible and the desirable. Should people commodify and sell their own genetic material? Could waste plastic material ever challenge monetary exchange within communities who value quality of life over financial gain, ecology over economics?

This is a collection of research and the outcomes produced in the first stage of the project by the students involved. Each group was allocated a specific domain to collectively research. These domains included; Health, Energy, Mobility, Economies, Education, Societal Structures and Environment. Each of these domains were examined through the lenses of Social, Technological, Economic, Ethical, Educational, Values, Political, Legal and Ecological (STEEEVPLE) a collaborative research card methodology developed within the Innovation School. While in these groupings, the students researched and explored through their specific domains and gathered as much information and understanding from the external experts to further their knowledge and gain varied perspectives. This group stage culminated in an exhibition of the collective knowledge and collaborative understanding of what the future could look like in ten years from now, after exploring the possible consequences of current actions. 
The groups: 
Societal Structures: Kourosh Khalilian, Conor Keenan, Petros Karakasis, Kathrin Brinkmann
Economies: Rosie McKenzie, Holly Zambonini, Callum Ferguson, Nicole Wills
Education: Pier Stevens-Rosa, Sarah HJ Yang, Alice Harper, Joao Vidal Lourenco
Energy: Rhona Brown, Jennifer O’Rourke, Chantal Roth, Breagh Baird
Mobility: Indre Strazdaite, Struan Stewart, Jessica Judge, Eilish McArthur
Health: Emma Chisholm, Luke Fallow, Helena MacDonald, Kristen McGhie
Environment: Ruth Kupiainen, Nella Piatek, Euan Robertson, Marta Kawecka
The stage 1 data folders are named consistently with the groups shown above.