Foresight (futures studies)

In futurology, especially in Europe, the term foresight has become widely used to describe activities such as: critical thinking concerning long-term developments, debate and for some futurists who are normative and focus on action driven by their values who may be concerned with effort to create wider participatory democracy. Foresight is a set of competencies and not a value system, however. 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. 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”). Several non-European think-tanks like Strategic Foresight Group are also engaged in foresight studies. The foresight of futurology is also known as strategic foresight. This foresight used by and describing professional futurists trained in Master's programs is the research-driven practice of exploring expected and alternative futures and guiding futures to inform strategy. Foresight includes understanding the relevant recent past; scanning to collect insight about present, futuring to describe the understood future including trend research; environment research to explore possible trend breaks from developments on the fringe and other divergencies that may lead to alternative futures; visioning to define preferred future states; designing strategies to craft this future; and adapting the present forces to implement this plan. There is notable but not complete overlap between foresight and strategic planning, change management, forecasting, and design thinking. At the same time, the use of foresight for companies (“corporate foresight”) is becoming more professional and widespread Corporate foresight is used to support strategic management, identify new business fields and increase the innovation capacity of a firm.