Può la science fiction aiutare la scienza? Ci può essere una dialettica tra i due campi o, ancora di più, forme di collaborazione? Ne sono convinti quelli del secondo "International Workshop on Creative Science (CS'11) – Science Fiction Prototyping for Technology Innovation (sponsorizzato da Intel e pubblicato da IOS Press), organizzato con la settima International Conference on Intelligent Environments (IE'11) – Nottingham, UK. 25 e 26 luglio 2011. Sul sito trovate le informazioni e i call for paper: http://www.creative-science.org/

"Background and Goals: This international workshop will explore the use of science fiction as a means to motivate and direct research into new technologies and consumer products. It does this by creating science fiction stories grounded in current science and engineering research that are written for the explicit purpose of acting as prototypes for people to explore a wide variety of futures. These ‘prototypes’ can be created by scientists and engineers to stretch their work or by, for example, writers, school children and members of the public to influence the work of researchers. The outcomes of these interactions are then fed back, to shape the science research and outputs. In this way science fiction prototypes act as a way of involving the widest section of the population in determining the science research agenda, thereby making science investment, and science output more useful to everyone ranging from companies, through scientists and engineers to the public, consumers and the government that indirectly fund R&D. In this way fictional prototypes provide a powerful interdisciplinary tool to enhance the traditional practices of research, design and market research. The goals of the workshop are to act as a catalyst of this new approach by acting as a forum where researchers from differing disciplines (notably science fact and science fiction) can come together to explore how to develop this area."