Project Description
Project Summary
The Future Flight Challenge at UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is a £300 million programme, jointly funded by the UK government and industry, to position the UK as a world-leader in the third aviation revolution.
Future Flight technologies have the potential to transform our day-to-day lives. Not only the way we travel, but also:
- how we live
- how we work
- our consumer habits
- our healthcare provision and
- our urban/rural environments.
Given the emergent nature of these technologies, there is a clear and pressing need for UK public dialogue to better understand publics’ interests, concerns and perspectives in relation to autonomous drone technologies and passenger carrying advanced air mobility (AAM) vehicles.
This mini dialogue provides a unique opportunity and starting point for publics to feed directly into research and innovation upstream of technological development for an entirely new system of transport/mobility from the outset.
The dialogue will explore the implications for people and society of the UKRI Future Flight Challenge and is commissioned by UKRI with support and co-funding from Sciencewise.
The overall aim of this mini-dialogue project is to engage a diverse and inclusive group of publics to deliberate on:
- the social, economic and environmental impacts and implications of future aviation technologies; and
- their hopes, fears and concerns about these, and their related creative insights/ ideas/innovations and desires.
The dialogue’s findings are expected to:
- inform the Future Flight Challenge Phase 3 activity
- inform the forward strategy development and implementation for social and economic research in this domain as part of the UKRI Social Science research director role
- inform the longer term 2030 vision
- feed into ongoing policy engagement with policy stakeholders at local, regional and national level and relevant regulatory bodies and stakeholders, cross -sector industry partners or public service bodies.
The process will engage citizens from across the UK in online workshops and an online platform. The dialogue will be run by Ipsos with The Liminal Space producing materials. A light touch evaluation will be undertaken by Sciencewise as part of ongoing learning on commissioning and running fast turnaround dialogues.
