Tuukka Toivonen, PhD (Oxon.)
Director | Becoming Regenerative Lab | LUL, RCA, UCL
I am the director of the London-based Becoming Regenerative Lab, a £1M UKRI-funded initiative that researches the emergence of regenerative innovations. By fusing co-design research and empirical social science, the Lab ultimately aims to foster a new wave of successful and ethical regenerative startups in the UK and globally.
As a sociologist affected by more-than-human ontologies, my personal mission is to explore new ways of being and creating that can help us reconnect with - and regenerate - the living world. The essays Rick Rubin has invited me to write for Tetragrammaton discuss (based on eclectic influences) how we might become alive to the more-than-human world, given contemporary conditions.
My work is driven by a long-standing fascination with creative, transformative interactions and acts of perceiving that can link us viscerally to the living world. How can we get better at them?
Prior research I’ve spearheaded has been published in outlets such as the Academy of Management Journal and the Stanford Social Innovation Review as well as by Routledge. I sit on the Editorial Board of Creativity and Innovation Management and I also review for AMJ.
I am a Reader in Regenerative Design and Entrepreneurship at Loughborough University London and an Associate Professor (Honorary) at STEaPP, UCL; visiting scholar at Tokyo University’s DLX Design Lab; Founder at Creative Friction Ltd (recent clients: British Council and Sitra); and Senior Associate at Principia Advisory.
I share my thoughts with the world through Youtube, Twitter, blogs, public talks and in-depth publications.