About

The University of Vigo’s Post-Growth Innovation Lab is an international, interdisciplinary group with a common research interest: enabling a sustainable, inclusive, and fair ecological transition away from the exploitative economic model that exists today.

We believe in democratising science, technology, and innovation structures. We also maintain that if mankind abandons its blind pursuit of infinite economic growth, we can all thrive on this planet without damaging each other and all the other species that call it home.

By combining various lines of research, we aim to bring novel, relevant, and multifaceted approaches to some of the most complex threats to our collective future.

  • Cooperativism and Social Economy

    How can cooperativism help to achieve a fairer economy?

  • Grassroots Movements

    How can technological advances be put at the service of the people?

  • Politics of Innovation

    What is innovation’s end goal? Who is innovation for? What benefits and costs might innovation bring?

  • Responsible Innovation

    Which guidelines should govern innovation?

  • Post-growth & Degrowth

    What should innovation look like in a post-growth economy?

Who are we?

Why a snail?

A snail, after adding a number of widening rings to the delicate structure of its shell, suddenly brings its accustomed building activities to a stop. A single additional ring would increase the size of the shell sixteen times. Instead of contributing to the welfare of the snail, it would burden the creature with such an excess of weight that any increase in its productivity would henceforth be literally outweighed by the task of coping with the difficulties created by enlarging the shell beyond the limits set by its purpose. At that point, the problems of overgrowth begin to multiply geometrically, while the snail’s biological capacity can at best be extended arithmetically.

Ivan Illich

Projects

  • Prospera

    What levels of technological complexity can we reach in a non-growing economy?

  • ExPliCit

    This project calls for opening up a debate to deconstruct the increasingly hegemonic discourse of Circular Economy based on a technocratic approach

  • Postgrowth S. A

    A citizen science project in the field of social sciences that aims to co-create the city of the future, a just and sustainable city designed for communal living and enjoyment.