Rob Hopkins

Rob Hopkins is a cofounder of Transition Town Totnes and Transition Network, and the author of The Transition Handbook, The Transition Companion, The Power of Just Doing Stuff, 21 Stories of Transition and most recently, From What Is to What If: unleashing the power of imagination to create the future we want. He presents the podcast series ‘From What If to What Next‘ which invites listeners to send in their “what if” questions and then explores how to make them a reality.  In 2012, he was voted one of the Independent’s top 100 environmentalists and was on Nesta and the Observer’s list of Britain’s 50 New Radicals. Hopkins has also appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Four Thought and A Good Read, in the French film phenomenon Demain and its sequel Apres Demain, and has spoken at TEDGlobal and three TEDx events.

An Ashoka Fellow, Hopkins also holds a doctorate degree from the University of Plymouth and has received two honorary doctorates from the University of the West of England and the University of Namur. He is a keen gardener, a founder of New Lion Brewery in Totnes, and a director of Totnes Community Development Society, the group behind Atmos Totnes, an ambitious, community-led development project. He blogs at transtionnetwork.org and robhopkins.net and tweets at @robintransition.

How to Fall in Love with the Future book cover

What if we could uncancel the future?

We need something with a focus on action and possibility. We need a movement that shares stories of what’s possible, creating futures so exciting that people can’t help but want to make them happen.

March 14, 2025

Time machine

Why The War on Dreams Must Inspire Us to Build the Greatest Desire Machines the World Has Ever Seen

Our ability to organise and resist is vital, but I believe now more than ever that our true strength lies in our ability to cultivate longing, to build awesome Desire Machines.

February 28, 2025

Bookcover

My Foreword for ‘The Regeneration Handbook’

Creating successful Transition groups is not easy, but one of the beauties of the Transition movement is that people often share what works as much as they share what doesn’t. Insights from the experiences Don shares here, his own and that of the wider movement, will make it so much easier for you to get started.

June 14, 2024

Shared community in Amsterdam

Reflections on the Narrative of Transition

So perhaps the narrative of Transition over these 18 years (yes it really has been that long…!) has moved from being about creating catalysts for local resilience to being Time Travel Agencies, who through the work they do, and how they tell stories about what they’ve already done and the potential futures it makes more credible, more within touching distance.

June 6, 2024

Ministry of Imagination Manifesto cover

Ministry of Imagination Manifesto released as the world goes to the polls

This year, perhaps now more than ever, we need a taste of what policymaking underpinned by the radical imagination looks like.

April 17, 2024

Play park in Chipping Norton

Doing it for the Kids: Transition Chipping Norton

I asked Cara what the group’s shift to a focus on young people had brought to the group. She said: “It helped us to view every aspect of the town from a young person’s perspective. Taking an approach focused on integrating their needs opened up many new doors and generated more interest in what we do.”

January 19, 2024

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