How might we create a desirable future with cell-based meat? Despite the devastating ecological, ethical, and health related consequences of modern factory farming, global demand for meat keeps rising. Cell-based meat (CBM) is a promising technology that might help save our planet by producing meat in an ecological and ethical manner. The idea is to cultivate meat from harvested living animal cells in a lab—without having to slaughter animals.

Disruptive technologies like cell-based meat have the potential to make our world a better place. They are, however, at risk of getting rejected by the public or triggering unwanted societal side effects. With this project we wanted to find out how we can prevent these negative developments and help cell-based meat reach its full positive potential as a technology that leads us into a better future.

A method for human-centered innovation Confronting people with possible futures We developed a method that allows designers and innovators to explore and define desirable ways of implementing new technologies. In this method we use speculative future visualizations and an iterative research framework based on the tensions fields of transparency, adaptation and participation that we defined through our research. Working with this topic, we became especially interested in what role animals should play in cellular agriculture. Eventually we centered our research around finding out about the ‘farm animal of the future’. We overall interviewed 19 participants between the ages of 21 and 31, gradually modifying our technique. Qualitative findings on the cell-based meat technology