Key Idea:

If you feel stuck when thinking about innovation policy topics (such as funding, infrastructure, etc.) and find yourself repeating the same arguments but lack new ideas, use this zine-making workshop format with your collaborators to spark imaginative thinking.

Purpose

Developed as part of ekip’s ongoing Future Forward Hackathons programme, our method for translating emerging societal, technological, and environmental priorities into forward-looking opportunities for the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs), we have devised this online workshop format where participants collaboratively ‘hack’ innovation policy topics for the CCIs. In keeping with the creative spirit of the project, participants work on visual zines that offer concrete provocations and actionable insights. (A zine is a small, self-published booklet that shares ideas, stories, or art; often in a personal or DIY style.)

This guide outlines how to use the assets we created to run your own Hacking Futures for CCIs workshop.

As we take you step-by-step, you will see accompanying visuals and follow-along examples from the second ekip Future Forward Hackathon What’s the price tag of innovation? Hacking the future of CCIs hosted by the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision across two online sessions in Summer 2025. Throughout the guide, you’ll find examples and visuals from that workshop to illustrate how the method works in practice.

What Do We Mean by “Hacking”?

In this context, hacking futures does not refer to technical hacking. Instead, it describes a creative, critical, and playful intervention into existing assumptions about how innovation and policy are shaped. By bringing together diverse perspectives, speculative scenarios, and visual storytelling, participants “hack” a topic by:

• reframing how it is usually understood,
• surfacing overlooked values and practices,
• identifying gaps and opportunities, and
• imagining alternative futures that could influence policy thinking.

Hacking is a way of breaking open repetitive conversations to make space for new narratives, metaphors, and possibilities.

Context:What’s the Price Tag of Innovation?

Does current funding for innovation match the characteristics and ambitions of the CCIs? Public funding models tend to prioritise short-term projects, market-driven KPIs, and highly ambitious results produced from relatively small investments. Private investors often work with expectations that do not align with the slower pace, community-driven nature, or smaller scale of creative businesses. Meanwhile, many cultural and creative practitioners lack the entrepreneurial skills that would help them pitch, scale, or position their innovations effectively. Can we bridge this gap between funders and CCIs to support innovation?

Although the example in this guide focuses on funding, the method can be adapted to topics such as infrastructure, support systems, collaboration, or future opportunities for CCIs.

This workshop is for you, if:

• You’re a funder or policymaker seeking to understand CCI needs beyond traditional KPIs, timelines, and investment logic.
• You work in the cultural or creative industries and feel stuck in repetitive conversations about innovation policy topics.
• You’re looking for a playful, visual, collaborative method (like zine-making) to spark new ideas with colleagues or stakeholders.

Why zine making?

Zines as a format stem from underground communities seeking independent and more open-ended ways to publish, build vocabularies of resistance, and mobilise together. It’s certainly not the typical format for talking about policy. The focus on visual language and unrestricted narratives might feel unusual or even uncomfortable in comparison to a typical policy paper… and that’s the point! Take on this challenge to step away from the usual policy contexts that might open new ways of thinking, talking, imagining and building the future.

Before you run your own workshop

• Define the scope – Clarify the theme you want participants to “hack” (e.g., funding models, support systems, future opportunities) and what’s in or out of scope.
• Decide who should participate – Identify the voices you need (e.g., practitioners, funders, policymakers) and whether you want a mixed or focused group.
• Plan the setup – Determine the workshop duration (typically 2–3 hours), group size, and facilitation roles; let participants know they’ll be doing light visual work.
• Prepare materials – Gather any visuals or examples you’ll use during the session.
• Configure your Miro board* – Make a copy of the template, adjust prompts to fit your theme, set up breakout areas, and ensure instructions are visible and easy to follow. 
• Brief participants – Send a short message with the purpose, schedule, and required tools (e.g. Miro access).
• Plan how you’ll capture outputs – Decide how zines, screenshots, and notes will be collected and how results will be shared afterwards.

*All activities were designed using the digital whiteboard tool Miro. Activities from What’s the price tag of innovation? can be referenced via the following Miro template.

The Workshop Steps

(Estimated timings based on a 2-hour format)

STEP 1. WELCOME & INTRODUCTION – 20 minutes
Introduce the goals, topic, and approach of the workshop (e.g. why use a zine format?)

STEP 2. REFLECTION – 10 minutes
Open dialogue among participants about their understanding of what the topic means to them.

STEP 3. BREAK-OUT ‘ROOMS’ – 20 minutes
Explore specific dimensions of the topic through collaborative discussion and idea generation.

STEP 4. MINI-ZINE CREATION – 55 minutes
Translate the ideas, provocations, and insights from the discussions into visual artefacts.

STEP 5. FINAL REFLECTION – 15 minutes
Consolidate learning, share insights, and identify key takeaways from the workshop experience.

Note: For offline workshops, the framework and steps will remain the same, but facilitation set ups will differ (e.g. participants will not work in Miro, facilitators may have different tables for specific thematic areas of focus, etc.)

Conclusion

By fostering creative exploration, critical reflection, and future-forward thinking, this workshop equips participants to reimagine how innovation topics such as funding could better align with the values, practices, and ambitions of the Cultural and Creative Industries. Through collaborative discussion and visual synthesis, participants generate new perspectives on how funding systems might evolve to support inclusive, sustainable, and culturally grounded innovation.

By integrating imaginative exercises into policy-related dialogue, ekip takes a step toward future-oriented, responsive, and impactful approaches to supporting the creative and cultural sectors across Europe. This workshop contributes to helping practitioners articulate their unique value propositions while building connections that support their engagement in collaborative innovation efforts.