Nicolas Prinz

Futures literacy and opinion-forming

Design Futuring: Participatory Design of Future Scenarios in the Context of the Transport Transition

Career history

After completing his apprenticeship as a joiner, Nicolas Prinz went on to complete a bachelor's degree programme in Industrial Design and a master's degree programme in Advanced Design at Hochschule München. In his Master’s thesis, ‘Planting the Future’, he already explored futures literacy in depth and examined the role that initiatives play as a bridge between civil society and political decision-makers in the field of urban transformation.

Since November 2025, Nicolas Prinz has been a research assistant at the Designkulturen Institute for Applied Design Research (dci) at Hochschule München. As part of the WiPa research project – Effective Participation for Mobility Innovations, which is funded under the MCube programme (Munich Cluster for the Future of Mobility in Metropolitan Regions) – he is investigating how participatory engagement formats can strengthen societal acceptance of mobility innovations and encourage active involvement. His focus is on developing and testing methods for opinion-forming and futures literacy, with the aim of supporting citizens as they engage with future scenarios in the context of the transport transition.