February 23, 2026 – Co-Creation Studio (MIT ODL) in collaboration with Agog: The Immersive Media Institute are excited to announce the return of WORLDING, an initiative to advance thought and practice at the intersection of storytelling, climate change planning, XR, visualization and land use place-based decision-making. The initiative, now in its fifth iteration, is accepting applications from teams to participate in the one-week virtual research and development workshop in the spring.
We are inviting teams with projects envisioning climate futures to apply to participate in the 2026 WORLDING incubator which will take place online May 13-27,2026. Interdisciplinary teams applying would ideally include 3 members, with at least one storyteller and one place-maker.
Apply Now
DEADLINE EXTENDED until March 18, 2026
(11:59 pm ET)
LEARN MORE AT OUR WEBINAR on MARCH 3
Join us for a WEBINAR here to learn more about the WORLDING initiative and to ask us your questions. Register for the webinar, MARCH 3 with two times available 8 AM ET or 7 PM ET.
The cohort will be carefully selected to include a diverse spectrum of disciplines, worldviews and approaches, from documentary and journalism, to games; from professionalized urban planning to community-based place-making, from AI-driven climate science to projects informed by Indigenous Epistemology, Afrofuturism and frameworks for disability justice.
For previous cohort composition and focus, please see the “projects and people” pages of 2022, 2023 and 2025.
KEY DATES: DEADLINE EXTENDED
Application Window, Feb 23 – March 18, 2026
Finalist Interviews, April 7–9, 2026
Selection Announcement, April 10, 2026
Incubator Program, May 13–27, 2026
HOW WILL TEAMS BENEFIT?
During the incubation workshop, the teams will have a unique opportunity to develop their projects with Co-Creation and ODL researchers, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) and Agog team members, to explore how they use (or could use) realtime 3D technology to imagine, plan and co-create future worlds within real-life communities. The workshop will include a custom curated program specifically developed for the teams. While WORLDING is not a funding call, a stipend will be offered for the time commitment.
HOW WILL TEAMS BE SELECTED?
Submissions will be accepted until extended deadline, March 18, 2026 through this form. A long list of teams will be invited for brief Zoom interviews April 7-10, and invited teams are asked that all participants are present for the appointed time.
The final cohort of selected teams will be asked to participate over Zoom in the 7-day program over the course of May 13- 272026 with WORLDING days spread out across three weeks in blocks of 4-6 hours. 4-5 teams will be selected through a rigorous committee process in April and May. The workshop will make an effort to accommodate candidates from any time zone, but core programming will take place within working hours in ET/PT time.
The form will ask for descriptions of the project itself, bios of team members and other visual tools such as decks, trailers and sample videos.
background image courtesy Mrinalini Singha
REQUIREMENTS
- The co-creative teams should each consist of (at minimum) a storyteller/maker and a land-use/urban planner or placemaker. While having a team-member with XR technology experience may be helpful, it is not required for consideration.
- The teams will need to make themselves available for
- A program design process that will include several ideation and planning sessions in April and May.
- 7 days of intensive programming from May 13-27, 2026. We ask that all team members be present with solid internet connection and a willingness to exchange ideas, develop projects and network. If there are connectivity issues, we are happy to work with teams to find curated solutions.
- One or two feedback sessions in June.
- This workshop will best benefit projects and teams that are somewhere past the dreaming stage but not yet ready with a testable hypothesis. We also see it benefiting teams that already have a problem statement and have identified common principles for the project that include.
- the making of a story or worldbuilding and
- placemaking or land use decision making that is community-based.
- There is no required training, educational degree, or level of experience to be nominated.
INCLUSION POLICY
All are welcome to be nominated from anywhere in the world, including self-nominations which meet the minimum criteria. We encourage applications from teams that include: Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian individuals; individuals who are part of racial, ethnic, or religious minority groups; women; gender non-conforming individuals; LGBTQI+ individuals; individuals living with a disability; and other individuals whose authorship has historically been under-supported or underrepresented within the fields of documentary, planning, and technology.
AI POLICY
At WORLDING, we value the transparent, responsible and ethical deployment of artificial intelligence. In the application below, we ask that you declare your AI use for this application. And if AI is used for your projects themselves, kindly elaborate on how in the project descriptions to the best of your ability.
GOALS
The act of co-creating XR worlds can be a powerful tool in both storytelling and placemaking. It not only sparks the collective imagination, but can also propel land use planning into direct action, especially with specific, local and urgent climate change adaptation and mitigation measures. We would like to continue investigating this co-creative approach to technology-assisted future-versioning by drawing together placemakers, community members, and artists/creators to visualize sustainable worlds and research how we could use realtime 3D technologies to render them possible in real life.
Please apply for your or any team here:
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CO-CREATION STUDIO AT MIT OPEN DOCUMENTARY LAB
Founded in 2016, the Co-Creation Studio is an initiative at MIT Open Documentary Lab. The studio researches and incubates collective creation (alternatives to a singular authorial vision), through a constellation of media methods. For us, co-creation can occur within communities, across disciplines and with non-human systems such as Artificial Intelligence, as outlined in our forthcoming MIT Press book, Collective Wisdom: Co-Creation Media for Equity and Justice. We work within the context of the MIT Open Documentary Lab, which brings storytellers, technologists, and scholars together to explore new documentary forms with a particular focus on collaborative and immersive storytelling.
