Posted by Alfiya Yermukasheva
12 August 2025By Dr. Rosie Hornbuckle, Dr. Ishrat Badruddin, Dr. Xinyi Guan, Dr. Max Kelly, Dr. Shelley Kotze, Dr. Ben Parker
In June FFN+ held a second Town Hall at the Design Museum in London to share and discuss results and learning from the first 18 months of the network. 87 people, from industry, funders, third-party organisations, independents and academia, came together to hear about the progress of the small Plus Pot funded projects.
This was also an opportunity to reflect and focus on what we are all learning from this diverse transdisciplinary community. The ECR (Early Career Research) team defined a collaborative session in the afternoon to encourage people to consider: What are the low-hanging fruit? and What will you do next?
Chaired by Dr Rosie Hornbuckle, the session began with a quiet moment where people were asked to individually reflect and write their thoughts on a postcard. The most common responses related to implementation of the research, including factors relating to economic viability, commercialisation and ‘scaling up’. Closely related to this was the question of follow-on funding with some postcards querying the short length of projects and the discontinuity of short-term research funding which can be a barrier to collaboration, momentum and progress.
“Collaboration is key”
Collaboration was front and centre, including the need to share data, to include arts, social sciences and humanities in interdisciplinary work, to build more brand and industry partnerships, to seek cross-sectoral learning, and to acknowledge the importance of bridging, convening roles and integration expertise. Systemic change was also frequently mentioned which speaks to the complexity of the challenge and the need for more collaboration.
“Starting conversations is what FFN+ does well”
Lastly, a theme that came through the postcards strongly related to story-telling and education. This was forcefully backed up in the next step of the session where each table was invited to discuss their postcards and then share the main points with the room in an open discussion.
The discussion began with a note about the need to share and access data with greater granularity, tailored to the specific industry partner. However, the conversation quickly turned to the topic of engagement, not only with industry, but also with wider audiences including the media and schools. The sense in the room was that research impact can be greatly amplified if the story of the research reaches beyond academia and industry, and that systemic change cannot really happen without this wider awareness of alternatives to the dominant fast fashion culture. The question was raised: why aren’t we engaging more with schools? Why aren’t we telling the stories of our research more widely? The media coverage of Max Kelly’s project [link] was cited as a best practice case.
“There is so much amazing work going on… what is needed is to continue getting word out and further awareness and understandability to general public and everyone”
Further discussion included the appropriateness of language and forms of engagement for school children and citizens. Participants discussed the lack of mechanisms and norms within academic research and funding to support and incentivise these types of engagement and educational resources, and the need for better translational route and expertise. Design, journalism and the arts & humanities more widely, could be a powerful ally in this endeavour. However, a change in the way that impact pathways are embedded within research infrastructure is also overdue, to prevent ‘engagement’ from being seen as an add-on or afterthought rather than strategically integrated into academic culture and funding structures.
