Foresight (futures studies)

In futures studies, especially in Europe, the term "foresight" has become widely used to describe activities such as:

• critical thinking concerning long-term developments,
• debate and effort to create wider participatory democracy,
• shaping the future, especially by influencing public policy.

In the last decade, scenario methods, for example, have become widely used in some European countries in policy-making.^[1] The FORSOCIETY network brings together national Foresight teams from most European countries, and the European Foresight Monitoring Project is collating material on Foresight activities around the world. In addition, foresight methods are being used more and more in regional planning and decision –making (“regional foresight”).

At the same time, the use of foresight for companies (“corporate foresight”) is becoming more professional and widespread ^[2][3][4] Corporate foresight is used to support strategic management, identify new business fields^[5][6] and increase the innovation capacity of a firm.^[7]

Foresight is not the same as futures research or strategic planning. It encompasses a range of approaches that combine the three components mentioned above, which may be recast as:

• futures (forecasting, forward thinking, prospectives),

• planning (strategic analysis, priority setting), and

• networking (participatory, dialogic) tools and orientations.

Much futures research has been rather ivory tower work, but Foresight programmes were designed to influence policy - often R&D policy. Much technology policy had been very elitist; Foresight attempts to go beyond the "usual suspects" and gather widely distributed intelligence. These three lines of work were already common in Francophone futures studies going by the name la prospective. But in the 1990s we began to see what became an explosion of systematic organisation of these methods in large scale TECHNOLOGY FORESIGHT programmes in Europe and more widely. Foresight thus draws on traditions of work in long-range planning and strategic planning, horizontal policymaking and democratic planning, and participatory futures studies - but was also highly influenced by systemic approaches to innovation studies, science and technology policy, and analysis of "critical technologies".

Many of the methods that are commonly associated with Foresight - Delphi surveys, scenario workshops, etc. - derive from the futures field. So does the fact that Foresight is concerned with:

• The longer-term - futures that are usually at least 10 years away(though there are some exceptions to this, especially in its use in private business). Since Foresight is action-oriented (the planning link) it will rarely be oriented to perspectives beyond a few decades out (though where decisions like aircraft design, power station construction or other major infrastructural decisions are concerned, then the planning horizon may well be half a century).

• Alternative futures: it is helpful to examine alternative paths of development, not just what is currently believed to be most likely or business as usual. Often Foresight will construct multiple scenarios. These may be an interim step on the way to creating what may be known as positive visions, success scenarios, aspirational futures. Sometimes alternative scenarios will be a major part of the output of Foresight work, with the decision about what future to build being left to other mechanisms.

Further reading

There are numerous journals that deal with research on foresight:

• The highest ranking journal is Technological Forecasting and Social Change
• Its smaller brother is foresight
• Research focussing more on the combination of foresight and national R&D policy can be found in International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy

See also

• Foresight Institute
• Corporate foresight
• Forecasting
• Futures studies
• Optimism bias
• Emerging technologies
• Reference class forecasting
• Scenario planning
• Strategic foresight
• Technology forecasting
• Technology Scouting

References

External links

• GLOGO - Global Governance System for strategic foresight at think tank Gold Mercury International
• Blog on foresight in companies
• The FORLEARN Online Guide developed by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies of the European Commission
• The Foresight Programme of UNIDO, the Investment and Technology Promotion Branch of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, offers a Training programme, a Manual on Technology Foresight, a foresight textbook, global forum events like TF Summit 2007 and other useful information
• Handbook of Knowledge Society Foresight published by the European Foundation, Dublin
• The UK Foresight programme is managed by the Office of Science and Technology. It brings together key people, knowledge and ideas to envisage future society and technology.
• Public Scenarios developed issues from healthcare and banking, aviation founded by the DTN
• Institute for Alternative Futures
• Strategic Foresight Group