In a nutshell
Blending science fiction with entrepreneurship education helps students imagine and prepare for radically different futures – not just extrapolate from the present. This study shows how speculative storytelling can train the entrepreneurial mindset to anticipate and shape change.
The future rarely knocks – it seeps in. One day, the robots need therapy, bees get voting rights, and Martian cities introduce zoning laws. Somewhere between absurdity and innovation, entrepreneurs start building markets for worlds that don’t exist yet, and, in a way, they always have. Every startup pitch, every invention, every wild hunch is a kind of science fiction – an attempt to make a story about the future believable enough to build.
In their recent paper, Leif Brändle and Andreas Kuckertz invite us to treat imagination as a form of method. They argue that science fiction – often thought of as entertainment rather than education – can help students explore ideas that normal business planning simply can’t reach. When entrepreneurs are trained to think about the next quarter, the next customer, or the next pitch, their horizon naturally narrows. Science fiction stretches it back out again.
Through three course iterations, Brändle and Kuckertz experimented with what they call science fiction prototyping: having students craft speculative stories, artefacts, or business concepts set in imagined futures. A team might design a start-up serving interspecies communication, or draft a news story from 2080 reporting on a climate-positive economy. The point isn’t to guess what will happen, but to use fiction to test what could – and what should – happen. By inventing these futures, students also reveal their own assumptions about technology, ethics, and progress – and then learn to challenge them.
Publication Date: September 2025
Authors: Leif Brändle and Andreas Kuckertz
Institution: University of Hohenheim, Germany
Study Type: Conceptual / pedagogical framework informed by iterative teaching practice
Sample Size: Informal qualitative feedback from students across three course iterations (no formal empirical dataset)
Research Focus: Using science fiction and speculative storytelling as a teaching tool to foster future thinking and entrepreneurial imagination.
Research Methodology: Conceptual analysis supported by pedagogical examples and theoretical synthesis connecting futures literacy, entrepreneurial education, and science fiction prototyping.
Main Findings: Science fiction can function as a serious pedagogical instrument for cultivating future thinking, encouraging students to explore alternative futures, question assumptions, and imagine entrepreneurial roles within them.
Citation: Brändle, L., & Kuckertz, A. (2025). Science, Fiction, and Entrepreneurship: Teaching Bold Futures Thinking for Entrepreneurial Action Today. Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy. Link
This process ties into the broader idea of futures literacy – a UNESCO-endorsed competence that emphasises the ability not just to anticipate change but to think critically about the kinds of futures we consider possible. Most entrepreneurship courses already deal with uncertainty, but science fiction adds more depth by helping students rehearse moral and social consequences, not just financial ones. In doing so, it shifts the question from “What business can I start?” to “What kind of world do I want this business to create?”
Brändle and Kuckertz report that students engaged deeply with this approach, offering reflective feedback that ranged from fascination to discomfort – exactly the tension the authors hoped for. Futures thinking, they suggest, shouldn’t feel safe; it should stretch the imagination until familiar ideas start to wobble. It should confront students with futures that are both alluring and unsettling to invite empathy, curiosity, and moral reflection – qualities that entrepreneurial training too often sidelines in its pursuit of feasibility and growth.
This isn’t about turning entrepreneurship classrooms into creative writing workshops, but about reclaiming the imagination as a rigorous analytical tool. As Brändle and Kuckertz put it, “science fiction is less about predicting the future than about expanding the space of what we can think.” The future will come whether we plan for it or not. The least we can do is make sure our entrepreneurs arrive fluent in imagination.
Related Research Recap:
When Students Design Their Own Learning — exploring how student-led design reshapes entrepreneurship education.
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