Vis for
Future

From 20–27 September 2019, millions of people worldwide joined the young climate protesters in a global climate strike to fight for climate justice. To support their cause, we carried out an international competition to gather state-of-the-art visualizations of climate change that were created in the last three years. The winners have been selected by an international jury of climate scientists, communicators, and activists. You can find with all other qualifying submissions including infographics, animations, and interactive visualizations below.

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    Call

    While climate change is a complex phenomenon with severe impacts for people and the environment, it is a human-made development, the trajectory of which can still be altered. The complexity of climate change requires new methods for making sense of scientific insights and communicating possible paths for action to various stakeholders and citizens. To better understand the dynamics of climate change and inform policy change, visualization is widely recognized as an indispensable tool for analysis and communication.

    Over the last few years, a broad range of climate visualizations has already been created by scientists, journalists, designers, developers and artists, some of which were targeted at the public, while many are hidden in academic papers and reports requiring expert knowledge. Considering the severity and complexity of the climate crisis, we feel there is a need to up the game for visualization creators. With this competition, we seek to put a spotlight on the ingenuity and impact that well-crafted data visualizations can have to communicate the causes and impacts of climate change and inform personal and political action.

    To take part in the competition, submit your climate visualization project that is

    • innovative: The data visualization employs original and creative ways of representing the complexities of climate change and its impacts.
    • understandable: The visual encodings are comprehensible for the intended audience, and their interaction design is inviting its use.
    • actionable: The visualization offers insights that can directly inform and encourage personal and/or political transformations.

    The submission is simple: you share basic information about the visualization including title, description, project team, publication date, a web link, and type (academic & government, commercial, journalistic, independent). If the project is not in English, a description of the visualization's content is necessary. After the submission deadline, our international jury of experienced climate scientists, communicators, and activists will review the submissions according to the above criteria, and choose the winners. Winners can earn prizes of up to 500 €.

    Timeline

    • : Call is launched
    • : Jury is published
    • : Submissions due
    • : All projects published
    • : Winners announced

    Jury

    • Marta ÁlvarezEcoopera
    • Matthew BattlesmetaLAB, Harvard
    • Christoph BertramPIK
    • Irene BottinoFridays for Future Palermo
    • Kennedy ElliottNational Geographic
    • J Henry FairPhotographer and Activist
    • Astrid FeldererEnvironment Agency Austria
    • Federica FragapaneIndependent Data Visualization Designer
    • Melissa GomisTechnical Support Unit of the IPCC, Working Group 1 / University of Paris-Saclay
    • Ailin HuangEnergy Efficiency in Emerging Economies Programme of the IEA
    • Lupita JohansonCommunications co-ordinator
    • Michele MauriDensityDesign, Politecnico di Milano
    • Thiago MedagliaAmbiental Media
    • Ivo OffenthalerEnvironment Agency Austria
    • Sonali PrasadIndependent Multimedia Journalist
    • Hanna RasperEllery Studio
    • Birgit SchneiderUniversity of Potsdam
    • Moritz StefanerTruth & Beauty
    • Julius TrögerZEIT Online
    • Florian WindhagerDanube University Krems

    Conditions

    • the visualization should be about climate change and/or its consequences
    • visualizations created by the organizers (ᴜᴄʟᴀʙ) are excluded from the competition
    • projects can be submitted by teams, but we still need a single contact person
    • multiple entries per person or team are permitted
    • with submitting a project, you're confirming to have it published on this website
    • it should be published within the last three years, i.e., after 20 Aug 2016

    Who are we

    We are a visualization research group at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam. Our work revolves around data visualization with a particular focus on the challenges and questions arising from social, cultural, and technological transformations. While one of our recent projects focuses on climate change scenarios, we feel there is a broader need to contribute to the growing awareness and ongoing discussions about climate change via well-designed visualizations. Climate change poses new challenges for each and every one of us and requires transformations in all sectors of our lives. With this competition, we hope to achieve an open process of knowledge transfer in which innovative visualizations inspire people to join in the climate movement and explore paths towards a more sustainable future.

    If you have any questions, feel free to contact us: vff@fh-potsdam.de

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