feel.
think.
shape.

Lia Meissner — future scientist, psychologist and strategist for Heartfelt Futures

Lia Meissner in the mast of a sailing ship

"Wind in my hair, I feel part of everywhere…", Atlantic crossing, 2025

MISSION HEARTFELT FUTURES

I love thinking big and shaping visions of a better tomorrow. Together we craft images of the future that build confidence and reconnect us with our creativity and joy. From analysis to strategy to implementation.

MY WORK

Foresight work

For me, foresight is not a prediction promise — it's sensemaking: testing assumptions, surfacing blind spots, developing viable options. I sharpened this practice at Fraunhofer ISI, at VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik, and in my own consulting work.

Publications (selection)
  • People Analytics in der öffentlichen Verwaltung · TAB 2026
  • 7 Foresight-Methoden zur erfolgreichen Strategieentwicklung 2024
  • Gesellschaftliche Auswirkungen hybrider Arbeitsformen · TAB 2024
  • Seltene Erden: Rohstoffsicherung in Europa · TAB 2024
  • Innovative Schiffbaukonzepte · TAB 2022
Full publication list on ResearchGate ↗

Applied Futures Research

Research and strategy projects for organisations facing complex futures questions. Experience includes companies, German federal ministries, the German Bundestag's Office of Technology Assessment (TAB), associations, NGOs.

→ Request a project

Keynotes

Talks on foresight, courage for the future, and alternative futures — for conferences, strategy retreats and universities.

→ Book a keynote

Foresight Training

I teach foresight at Freie Universität Berlin and offer tailored training for organisations — from a one-day intensive to a multi-module curriculum.

→ Request training

Systemic accompaniment

I'm a trained systemic counsellor and therapist, working with people in deep transitions. My practice connects systemic thinking, embodiment and resilience research.

1:1 Coaching

One-on-one sessions for burnout, Long Covid, separation, grief, career and meaning crises — among others.

→ Book a session

Life Repair Kit

Tools for a good life. Tools that actually hold you steady through hard times.

→ Visit the website

Resilience Workshops

For teams and organisations. Burnout grows in structures — that's exactly where my holistic resilience workshops begin.

→ Request a workshop

Heartfelt Futures Studio

This is where images, spaces and workshops emerge — bridging foresight with embodiment and artistic practice. Where other futures research ends in reports, my work begins: with the question of how a future would feel in which we live well.

Speculative Design Studio

Images, objects, texts and spaces that make alternative futures visible. Commissions available for organisations, foundations and institutions.

→ Enquire

Visioning Workshops

Futures are not designed at the whiteboard here — but with body, material and imagination. Where foresight meets speculative design.

→ Request a workshop

Heartfelt Futures Collective

A collective of people who want to work at the intersection of foresight, care and design.

→ Enquire
ABOUT

I am Lia Meissner.

For more than ten years I have worked at the intersection of futures research, psychology and artistic practice.

I studied psychology and sociology at the universities of Frankfurt and Zurich, later Philosophy, Politics & Economics at Witten/Herdecke and Stanford. Since 2018 I have been writing foresight studies for the public sector — at Fraunhofer-Institut für System- und Innovationsforschung, at VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik for the German Bundestag's Office of Technology Assessment.

Much of what I know about anticipation, teamwork and deciding under uncertainty I learned on the open sea — most recently on my 2025 Atlantic crossing under sail.

Alongside this I completed training as a systemic counsellor and therapist and founded Life Repair Kit — a practice for people moving through crisis and transformation.

Today I'm building Heartfelt Futures: a practice that bridges scientific foresight with systemic clarity, embodied knowledge and aesthetics. I teach foresight at Freie Universität Berlin, advise organisations and give talks.

Portrait of Lia Meissner in the studio
UPDATES

What's happening.

Podcast

Jeden Sommer 45 Grad? Was dann?

Interview on the tagesschau futures podcast „Mal angenommen…"

→ Listen now
New Study

People Analytics in der öffentlichen Verwaltung

Study for the German Bundestag's Office of Technology Assessment (TAB)

→ Read
Podcast

Wie umgehen mit Zukunftsangst?

Interview on the WIE WEITER podcast

→ Learn more
Teaching

Einführung in die Strategische Vorausschau

Online course at Freie Universität Berlin

→ Learn more
Teaching

Vertiefungsworkshop Szenarioentwicklung

In-person workshop at Freie Universität Berlin

→ Learn more
CONTACT

Say Hello

Write me if you'd like to work with me — as an organisation, as an individual, or as part of what Heartfelt Futures is becoming.

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