Unlocking social imagination: from vision to action

Posted on: 23 July 2025 by Mark Swift in Blog

In this three-part series, I’ve argued that our public systems need more than better strategies - they need more imagination.

In the first part, I explored how social imagination helps us see beyond short-term crisis management and design systems rooted in equity, care, and long-term flourishing. In the second, I looked at the cultural barrier that so often holds us back: fatalism - and how reframing can shift what feels possible.

But imagination alone isn’t enough.

To move from idea to impact, imagination needs structure. It needs time, space, and scaffolding. It needs ways to navigate the messy, non-linear journey from vision to practice.

Introducing the Imagination-to-Action Framework

That’s why I developed the Imagination-to-Action Framework (IAF) - a structured, evolving process designed to help policymakers, practitioners, and communities turn bold ideas into real-world action.

It draws on design thinking, systems leadership, appreciative inquiry, and futures work - but its focus is practical: to help people do imagination well, not just talk about it. It’s still evolving. It’s being tested, refined, and adapted in live settings. But it offers a starting point - a flexible structure for taking imagination seriously.

Why I built the framework

In our work at Wellbeing Enterprises and through cross-sector collaborations, we kept seeing the same pattern: a burst of creative thinking, a hopeful prototype, then a slow return to business as usual. The space for imagination would open - then close again.

We needed a way to hold that space open. To give teams a shared language, a common rhythm, and permission to keep imagining, even as things got operational.

The IAF was shaped in response to that need.

The three phases

The framework is built around three core phases:

1. Expanding Possibilities - generating bold visions through collaborative storytelling, scenario planning, and creative thinking
2. Prototyping Change - turning visions into testable ideas using design methods, backcasting, and iterative learning
3. Translating Vision into Reality - embedding promising innovations into policy, strategy, and practice

These phases are expressed through a ten-step pathway - not a rigid process, but a navigational tool to help people move from vision to action in complex systems.

The ten steps

Phase 1: Expanding Possibilities

1. Define the Dream Focus - Identify a challenge or ambition worth reimagining
2. Acknowledge the Present, Then Set It Aside - Understand current constraints, then suspend them
3. Ignite Creative Thinking - Use storytelling, speculative design, and futures methods
4. Visioning the Future - Co-create bold, values-led future visions
5. Synthesis & Refinement - Find patterns and shared insights to shape a coherent vision

Phase 2: Prototyping Change

6. Backcasting - Work backwards from the desired future to map change steps
7. Evidence Review & Creative Problem-Solving - Blend research with lived insight to shape ideas
8. Develop a Strategic Action Roadmap - Prioritise short and long-term moves; identify coalitions; revisit present-state constraints to shape tactics and navigate barriers

Phase 3: Translating Vision into Reality

9. Pilot & Evaluate Innovations - Test ideas through safe-to-fail experiments
10. Institutionalise & Scale - Embed learning into policy, strategy, and investment plans

A real-world example: early intervention in Halton

One area where we’ve applied this approach is in Halton, through our involvement in NHS England’s Complete Care Community programme, where we focused on early intervention for children experiencing behavioural challenges - an important but often overlooked determinant of future life chances.

Working with Runcorn Primary Care Network (RHealth) and over 50 stakeholders across health, education, and community sectors, we used creative methods - storytelling, arts-based exercises, and co-design - to reimagine how systems could respond more effectively to families’ needs.

So far, this has led to improved access to parental support and emotional literacy programmes, new practitioner resources, and a co-produced Heseltine Institute policy brief to inform wider system change. Lived experience is now embedded in proposals for future service innovation - a vital shift in where insight and authority sit.

The work is ongoing. As we look to develop and test new service-level innovations, resourcing remains a live challenge - but the IAF has proven vital in helping us maintain strategic clarity, alignment, and momentum. It holds the space for imagination, even as we navigate the realities of complex change.

Who might use the Imagination-to-Action Framework?

The IAF isn’t sector-bound. It’s designed for anyone working in complex systems who wants to hold space for imagination - and act on it.

• Public sector leaders might use it to reimagine commissioning, planning cycles, or service models
• Community practitioners could apply it to co-design work with residents and local groups
• Funders and investors may find it useful to assess readiness, coherence, and developmental progress
• Partnerships and collaborations can use it to align purpose, test ideas, and share learning

It’s not necessary to use all ten steps. Some teams may just need a way to begin; others may need help moving from pilot to policy. The value is in the structure - but also in the flexibility.

What makes the Imagination-to-Action Framework different?

This framework doesn’t pretend that change is tidy. It doesn’t offer a shortcut. What it does is protect the space for imagination - when systems pull us back to the urgent, the measurable, the known.

It encourages diverse voices, iterative learning, and emotional honesty. It honours both the dreamer and the doer. And it supports change that is not only deliverable, but desirable.

The Imagination-to-Action Framework is not a silver bullet. It’s a field-tested, still-developing tool - shaped by real work in real systems, and grounded in a belief that people can and should shape the futures they live in. We offer it here not as a solution, but as an invitation.

If you’re holding a bold idea, leading a stuck system, or searching for a new way to move forward - this framework is yours to use, test, adapt and improve.

The future isn’t something we await. It’s something we imagine - and build.

Image credit: Photo by Xavi Cabrera on Unsplash