Methodology

Sporesight’s practice, Rot + Regeneration framework and Fungi Principles emerged organically from our Fungi x Futures world research tour and ongoing exploration into how fungi are impacting human futures, including the following:

01 FUNGI X FUTURES RESEARCH TOUR

Since 2021, Sporesight founder Jess Jorgensen has connected with 100+ thinkers (and counting!) across Africa, Asia, Europe, United Kingdom, United States and beyond. Like mycelium, this exploration is nonlinear: following mycelium; an interspecies ethnography from one interview to the next. Fungi have become a guide, teacher, accomplice.

Participants stem from a multi-disciplinary range of fields, including: mycology, activism, agribusiness, AI ethics, art, conservation, design (industrial, systems, product), education and training, ethnomycology, foraging, functional mushrooms, genome sequencing, food & beverages (hot drinks, soft drinks, snacks, food, protein alternatives), law and policy, mycelium-grown construction materials, mycelium materials design, international development, philosophy, psychedelic-assisted therapy, refugee-led social enterprise, retail, taxonomy.

A selection of participants, in no particular order, and each of whom I am grateful for their contribution to the work: Fungi Foundation; Fungi Perfecti; London Fungus Network; Nourish All; Mycological Society of Southern Africa; AfriFungi; Breyten van der Merwe, Master of Engineering PHD Stellenbosch University; Makuno Organic Mushrooms; Moss & Morchella; Psyence Therapeutics; Studio Cone; London Nootropics; Psychedelic Society of South Africa; MycoTile; Mycelia & Foods KE; Kituzi Drink; Fungi & Fragrance; Emmay Organic Mushrooms; Cosmic Bazaar; Differ Studio; Michael Kibedi; Eco-Agric Uganda; Garden Route Trails; Gary Goldman, author of Field Guide to Mushrooms & other Fungi of South Africa; The Regenescape; Mycopunks; Hodari Foundation; Rwamwanja Rural Foundation; Mycelium Hub; The Mushroom Guru; The Spore Store; Prof. Dr Elizabeth Hofvenschiöld; Harmonic Mycology; The Fungi Consultant; Organism Thinking; Aether Apothecary; Mushrooms Kenya.

02 FUNGI X FUTURES DEPTH INTERVIEWS

In-depth Fungi x Futures conversations with n=13 professionals across mycology, foresight, engineering, interdisciplinary design, and regenerative design thinking, exploring fungi principles, use cases and real-world applications [Mar-May 2025].

03 ONLINE QUAL

15 min Online tasks via Field Notes platform, exploring perceptions of fungi, foresight, futures, with n=11 professionals working in senior positions in brand marketing, strategic foresight, consumer insight, research, innovation.

04 MUSHROOM CURIOUS DEPTH INTERVIEWS

90 min conversations exploring perceptions of mushrooms, fungi, functional mushroom products, with n=6 British mushroom-curious consumers.

For Fungi A core group of collaborators helped shape the final thinking, reviewing and feeding back on the near-final draft.

GEOGRAPHIES COVERED:

• In-person - Kenya, The Netherlands, South Africa, Thailand, UK, Uganda, Vietnam

• Online - All of the above plus Canada, Chile, Germany, India, Italy, Namibia, Nigeria, Nomadic, Spain, Sweden, USA

📚 Our reading ecosystem. Support most of these books via Sporesight’s Bookshop.org store: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/sporesight

Last updated on 21 May 2026.

// BOOKS

• Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (2013), by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Milkweed Editions.

• Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice (2018), by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. Arsenal Pulp Press.

• Designing Regenerative Cultures (2016), by Daniel Christian Wahl. Triarchy Press.

• Designing Sustainable Futures: How to Imagine, Create, and Lead the Transition to a Better World (2024), by Joanna Press and Martina Celi. Routledge.

• Earth for All: a survival guide for humanity: a report to the Club of Rome (2022), by Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Owen Gaffney, Jayati Ghosh, Johan Rockström, Per Espen Stoknes, Jørgen Randers

• Entangled Life (2021), by Merlin Sheldrake. Bodley Head.

• Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature (2025), by Patricia O. Kaishian. Spiegel & Grau.

• The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long Term in a Short-Term World (2021), by Roman Krznaric. Penguin Books.

• In Search of Mycotopia: Citizen Science, Fungi Fanatics, and the Untapped Potential of Mushrooms (2023), by Doug Bierend. Chelsea Green Publishing.

• Let's Become Fungal!: Mycelium Teachings and the Arts (2023), by Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez. Valiz.

• The Lost Muti (2025), by Cullen Taylor Clark. Available at: https://www.lostmuti.com/

• The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins (2015), by Anna Tsing. Princeton University Press.

• Natural Connection (2025), by Joycelyn Longdon. Penguin Books.

• The Pattern Book for Regenerative Design (2025), by Oliver Broadbent. Constructivist Ltd.

• Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation (2021), by Paul Hawken. Penguin Books.

• Shy Radicals: The Antisystemic Politics of the Militant Introvert (2021), by Hamja Ahsan. Pluto Press.

• The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World (1996), by David Abram. Vintage Books.

• Stinkhorn: How Nature's Most Foul-Smelling Mushroom Can Change the Way We Listen (2024), by Siôn Parkinson. Sternberg Press.

• Thinking in Systems: A Primer (2008), by Donella H. Meadows. Edited by Diana Wright. Chelsea Green Publishing.

• Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence (2024), by James Bridle. Penguin.

// OTHER

• Adrian Lambert, A Grand Unified Theory of Doom substack

• Adrienne Matei, The Guardian (2025) - Systems are crumbling – but daily life continues. The Dissonance is real 

• Amy Martin, The Guardian (2025) - Nature’s secret soundscape: Listen with me to the world’s quietest creatures

• Amy Webb, World Economic Forum (2024) - What is strategic foresight and why is it so important? 

• Arup Foresight

• Avanade Intelligent Garden

• Christian Sarkar, Philip Kotler and Enrico Foglia; Regeneration Journal (2023) - Sustainability, Resilience, Regeneration – What’s the Difference? 

• Daniel Christian Wahl, Medium (2017) - Sustainability is not enough: we need regenerative cultures

• Distributed Press Blog

• Eugenia Bone, (2024) - Mycelium, Mycology and Metaphor

• Freddie Sukprasong, Liminal Substack (2025) - Decentring the Designer

• Fungi: Web of Life film

• Future Days 2025

• Future Observatory Journal (2024) Worlding

• HAQUE TAN - Design for Shared Futures

• Indy Johar - The Economy of Becoming: Why Recursive and Regenerative Systems Are the Only Way Forward (2026)

• Indy Johar - From Smooth Decline to Systemic Breakdown (2026)

• Inflection Points by Jorge De la Mora

• Institute of Natural Law

• Jay Graber, Medium (2023) - Web3 is Self-Certifying

• Jess Jorgensen and Marios Levi, Sporesight Substack (2023) - Embracing the third F word: Fauna, flora, and Funga

• Jeremy Lent, Ecocivilisation (2026)

• Joycelyn Longdon - researcher, author, writer

• Laura Saunders, Wired (2010) - Slime mold grows network just like Tokyo Rail System 

• Manda Scott and co., Thrutopia

• Michael Kibedi, First & Fifteenth Substack (2024) - Fifteenth #5: On more-than-human design

• Moth Rights - Nonhuman Animal Communication Technologies

• The National Infrastructure Commission for Wales & ARUP Foresight — Welcome to a Flood Resilient Wales in 2050

• The National Infrastructure Commission for Wales — Flooding Report

• Paradox Institute, YouTube (2025) - Do Fungi Have Thousands of Sexes?

• Planetary Civics Inquiry

• Pollination, Chapter Zero and Korn Ferry (2024) Nature for Boards: A primer

• Project CETI

• ReFi DAO

• Regenerative Marketing Institute

• The Regenescape

• RegenIntel

• Renee Davis, Hyphal Extensions Substack (2025) - Painting as process / The world is being created

• Renee Davis, Journal of Wild Culture (2023) - Ghost pipe: Grief remedies and metaphors for the anthropocene

• Science Friday with Patty Kaishian (2024) - Fungi and Queer Ecology

• Space.for.Earth on Instagram - “The Earth has a pulse, and satellites help us see it”

• Terrenity

• Tijn Tjoelker - The Mycelium

• TWPF Reading Group ​(2024) Center for the Study of World Religions

// ACADEMIC PAPERS

• Adamatzky, A. (2022) ‘Language of fungi derived from their electrical spiking activity’, Royal Society Open Science, 9(4). doi:10.1098/rsos.211926.

• Djoulakian, Hasmik. (2020) ‘The Science Underground’, Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, 6(2). doi:10.28968/cftt.v6i2.33523

• Frank, A., Grinspoon, D. and Walker, S. (2022) ‘Intelligence as a planetary scale process’, International Journal of Astrobiology, 21(2), pp. 47–61. doi:10.1017/s147355042100029x

• Microbial Biotechnology (2024) Article Title. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/mmi.15118

• Nowakowski, Patryk. et al. (2020) ‘The two faces of coprinus comatus functional properties and potential hazards’, Phytotherapy Research, 34(11), pp. 2932–2944. doi:10.1002/ptr.6741

• Gervais, N.C., Shapiro, R.S. Discovering the hidden function in fungal genomes. Nat Commun 15, 8219 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-52568-z. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-52568-z

• Scott, J.A. et al. (2016) ‘Multilocus DNA sequencing of the whiskey fungus reveals a continental-scale speciation pattern’, Persoonia - Molecular Phylogeny and Evolution of Fungi, 37(1), pp. 13–20. doi:10.3767/003158516x689576 

• Smith, Gabriel .R. et al. (2018) ‘Competition–colonization tradeoffs structure fungal diversity’, The ISME Journal, 12(7), pp. 1758–1767. doi:10.1038/s41396-018-0086-0

• Steinberg, G. et al. (2017) ‘Cell biology of hyphal growth’, Microbiology Spectrum, 5(2). doi:10.1128/microbiolspec.funk-0034-2016

• Stepney, S. et al. (2005) ‘Journeys in non-classical computation I: A grand challenge for computing research’, International Journal of Parallel, Emergent and Distributed Systems, 20(1), pp. 5–19. doi:10.1080/17445760500033291. 

• Wäli, P.P. et al. (2013) ‘Is the pathogenic ergot fungus a conditional defensive mutualist for its host grass?’, PLoS ONE, 8(7). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0069249