Articles

An examination of independent fiscal councils and their orientation to the future and policy making

The aim of this paper is to review the rationale, nature and operation of independent fiscal councils (IFCs) in order to gain insights into how futures are being configured at executive levels of government an...

Authors: Stuart Connor

Ugly as a concept in craft to examine alternative futures

Futures studies argue that the future cannot be predicted, but rather alternative futures can be explored and preferred futures can be imagined. Furthermore, our images of the futures can be a resource that in...

Authors: Ana Nuutinen, Riikka Räisänen and Päivi Fernström

Methods for assessing future scenarios from a sustainability perspective

Future scenarios are often used to address long-term challenges characterised by uncertainty and complexity, as they can help explore different alternative future pathways. Scenarios can therefore be a useful ...

Authors: Eléonore Fauré, Yevgeniya Arushanyan, Elisabeth Ekener, Sofiia Miliutenko and Göran Finnveden

Future software organizations – agile goals and roles

Digital transformation is rapidly causing major, even disruptive changes in many industries. Moreover, global developments like digital platforms (cloud) and IoT create fundamentally new connections at many le...

Authors: Petri Kettunen and Maarit Laanti

The role of future-oriented technology analysis in e-Government: a systematic review

During the last three decades, many governments have incorporated Information and Communication Technologies in their internal and external processes, a phenomenon widely known as electronic government (e-Gove...

Authors: J. M. Sánchez-Torres and I. Miles

The future of consumer decision making

Mediatisation of the world and the increasing power of social networks, means that consumers’ choices are more and more based on identity play, gaining social currency and self-branding. Furthermore the choice...

Authors: Hanna Willman-Iivarinen

Deliberative future visioning: utilizing the deliberative democracy theory and practice in futures research

Broadly defined, deliberative democracy aspires the decision-making legitimacy by deliberation of equal citizens. As a response to the growing discontent with the representational governance, the normative and...

Authors: Hanna-Kaisa Pernaa

Surprise as the new normal – implications for energy security

We are living in a world of increasing interconnectedness through digitalisation and globalisation, exacerbating environmental conditions, severe economic challenges, uneven distribution of wealth, and geopoli...

Authors: Sirkka Heinonen, Joni Karjalainen, Juho Ruotsalainen and Karlheinz Steinmüller

Political and social trends in the future of global security. A meta-study on official perspectives in Europe and North America

The present paper provides a meta-study of security and defence foresight documents by the Atlantic Alliance, European Union and various official bodies linked to the Defence Ministries of Canada, France, Germ...

Authors: Javier Jordan

Food safety and nutrition – how to prepare for a challenging future? New approaches for using scenarios for policy-making

Scenarios are a well-established methodology used in foresight. In this paper a three-phased process is described to maximise relevance for policy-making of a set of scenarios. As a first step, four scenarios ...

Authors: Anne-Katrin Bock and Laurent Bontoux

How young adults imagine their future? The role of temperamental traits

Relatively few empirical studies have addressed the psychological dimensions involved in the imagination of the future. The present study aimed to verify the hypothetical link between the temperament traits of...

Authors: Amelia Rizzo and Liang Chaoyun

Book review: listening to the approaching wave

In his book, Markku Wilenius, Professor of Future Studies at the University of Turku, in Finland, applies the concept of the mega waves of change (of 40–60 years each), proposed by the Russian economist Nikola...

Authors: Emmanuel G. Koukios

Framing the future of privacy: citizens’ metaphors for privacy in the coming digital society

Privacy is one of the pressing issues of the digital age. New technologies and surveillance practices continuously present new privacy threats. This paper reports an exploratory qualitative study on non-expert...

Authors: Matti Minkkinen, Burkhard Auffermann and Sirkka Heinonen

Disquieting uncertainty. Three glimpses into the future

The article sketches three major realms - the realm of world order, the realm of work, and the realm of social policy - that will in all likelihood undergo fundamental change in the years and decades ahead, ra...

Authors: Volker H. Schmidt

Neo-pragmatism: an ethical anticipatory system

In 1906 and 1907 William James delivered a series of lectures in Boston and New York. Those lectures later were distilled into a paper entitled PRAGMATISM A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. In 1972 Robert ...

Authors: John Vodonick

Weak signals and wild cards in water and sanitation services – exploring an approach for water utilities

Weak signals and wild cards are used to scan the environment and make systems more sensitive to emerging changes. In this paper, the applicability of weak signals and wild cards is experimented in a case of a ...

Authors: Annina Takala and Ossi Heino

Narrative foresight in technical organizations: epistemological and methodological contributions from a practice of scenario method in Argentina

The following paper explores the experience of narrative Foresight applied to the use of the scenario method in Argentina in the light of the contributions of critical Future Studies concerning the narrative d...

Authors: María Mercedes Patrouilleau

The future of business in Visegrad region

The paper aims to advance Futures Research by outlining the context and development perspectives of business Foresight in Visegrad region (that is in: Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary). Authors app...

Authors: Anna Sacio-Szymańska, Anna Kononiuk, Stefano Tommei, Ondrej Valenta, Éva Hideg, Judit Gáspár, Peter Markovič, Klaudia Gubová and Brigita Boorová

Futuribles of learning 2030 - Delphi supports the reform of the core curricula in Finland

The Future of Learning 2030 Barometer was launched in 2009. It was ordered by the Finnish National Board of Education to support the reform of the core curricula and look beyond the contemporary interests. The...

Authors: Tiina Airaksinen, Irmeli Halinen and Hannu Linturi

Futuring European industry: assessing the ManuFuture road towards EU re-industrialization

Industry is the backbone of the European economy—producing 80% of Europe’s exports, accounting for 80% of private Research, Technology Development and Innovation (RTDI) expenditures, and providing more than 30...

Authors: Björn Sautter

A participatory Foresight for National Research and Education Networks

The aim of this paper is to show some results from a Foresight study related to future trends about advanced technology services of National Research and Education Networks (NREN). The approach of this study w...

Authors: Abdul Yaver, J. M. Sánchez-Torres, M. A. Amórtegui and L. Giraldo-Ríos

Trust makes this organisation unique

Modes of organising have an indirect relationship with the new key technologies as enablers of new forms of organisation. The effect is two-fold: first the emergent technologies bring more efficiency to tradit...

Authors: Sofi Kurki and Markku Wilenius

Foresighting organizational learning equilibrium in European universities

This article presents a short journey into the realm of foresighting exploration and exploitation of knowledge. Universities aim to achieve a prolific balance between research, education and third mission acti...

Authors: Stig A. Selmer-Anderssen and Jan E. Karlsen

Twitter data analysis as contribution to strategic foresight-The case of the EU Research Project “Foresight and Modelling for European Health Policy and Regulations” (FRESHER)

In this article the value of Twitter data analysis for a strategic foresight exercise is discussed. The article offers an overview of Twitter’s basic functionalities, previous Twitter research and related stud...

Authors: André Uhl, Nina Kolleck and Edgar Schiebel

Pedagogies of the futures: Shifting the educational paradigms

Focusing on an educational paradigm rooted in critical pedagogy, the socratic method, futures studies, and peace education, this essay takes the position that classrooms of the future should be transformed int...

Authors: Jelena Cingel Bodinet

Foresight as a key enabler of innovation in the economy. Introduction to the topical collection

Authors: Anna Sacio-Szymańska, Gualtiero Fantoni and Cornelia Daheim

Is the Delphi method valid for business ethics? A survey analysis

Although Delphi has come a long way in the development of the method itself, or even in business organisation, it has not been used at all in business ethics. To fill this gap, we have reviewed the literature ...

Authors: Leire San-Jose and Jose Luis Retolaza

Scenarios for crime and terrorist attacks using the internet of things

The Internet of Things is a paradigm in which everyday items are connected to the internet and share information with other devices. This new paradigm is rapidly becoming a reality in the developed world, and ...

Authors: Roey Tzezana

Teaching with scenarios: a social innovation to foster learning and social change in times of great uncertainty

Learning strategies are social innovations of the past. To help us cope with problems in the past, they were developed, imitated, spread and codified into practices, rules and institutions. They lose their use...

Authors: Andrea Cederquist and Ulrich Golüke

Ana’s tragedy – and Europe’s a contemplation over Romani, belonging and the conditioned citizenship making in a Europe of migration

This article deals with the notion of belonging in today’s multi-ethnic Sweden and hints at perpectives of future European identity-building. On the basis of Frantz Fanon’s understanding of colonialism and the...

Authors: Magnus Dahlstedt and Maria Olson

Future creation in the strategising practice of a Hungarian company

The core research question that is discussed in this paper is: “How is the future constructed in corporate strategy-making practice?” The answer is provided through the analysis of a single case study that was...

Authors: Judit Gáspár

Innovation explosion catalysed by foresight-results of an experiment

One of the major findings of the Greece-2021 Technology Foresight project concerns a multiple innovation blockage phenomenon, affecting strategic sectors of the national economy and society. To analyse and abate ...

Authors: Emmanuel G. Koukios

Functional technology foresight. A novel methodology to identify emerging technologies

The speed and complexity of the technology evolution faced by modern societies need new approaches to the analysis and understanding of the world. Indeed, an exclusive focus on technological goals can miss to ...

Authors: Riccardo Apreda, Andrea Bonaccorsi, Felice dell’Orletta and Gualtiero Fantoni

Using strategic foresight methods to anticipate and prepare for the jobs-scarce economy

A fundamental shift in the future of work is underway, with significant implications for the number, location, and types of jobs. This shift is entangled in a wider set of longer-term transitions. The disrupti...

Authors: Angela Wilkinson

Interactions between oceans and societies in 2030: challenges and issues for research

The perception of ocean areas by policy-makers or by people, living or not on the coast, has significantly varied over centuries. Due to its vastness and complexity, the sea has been studied within distinct ac...

Authors: Denis Lacroix, Bernard David, Véronique Lamblin, Nicolas de Menthière, Marie de Lattre-Gasquet, Antoine Guigon, Emmanuelle Jannès-Ober, Halvard Hervieu, Françoise Potier, Gilles Ragain and Moussa Hoummady

Peer-to-peer work in the digital meaning society 2050

The article discusses possible futures of self-organising peer-to-peer work through four transformative scenarios constructed in the Neo-Carbon Energy research project. These futures images probe the futures o...

Authors: Juho Ruotsalainen, Sirkka Heinonen, Joni Karjalainen and Marjukka Parkkinen

The ambiguity of intelligent algorithms: job killer or supporting assistant

The history of industrialisation shows how new technologies triggered social and economic revolutions, and how traditional jobs were replaced or changed by the use of machines. There are signs of highly dynami...

Authors: Anette Braun, Axel Zweck and Dirk Holtmannspötter

Human centred science and technology—transdisciplinary foresight and co-creation as tools for active needs-based innovation governance

Current governance structures are increasingly showing inability to address complex issues such as the Grand Challenges. Dealing with these highly interrelated, cross cutting, extensive and potentially open en...

Authors: Niklas Gudowsky and Walter Peissl

Educational change, inertia and potential futures

The point of departure of the paper is that there are profound social, cultural, technological, scientific and environmental changes which occur at most local but also at global levels of the modern world. Fro...

Authors: Jón Torfi Jónasson

A transforming international system and the three approaches to the security dilemma

This article seeks to analyse the security dilemma in light of the transforming international system of today. Hereby, K. Waltz’s three images of war (men, the state, the international system) were taken as th...

Authors: Evgenia Gordeeva

Forecasting potential innovation activities in high-tech industries triggered by merger and acquisition deals: a framework of analysis

Technologies arising out of successful high-tech mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have a significant innovation potential. However, forecasting of the possible output is coupled with uncertainties caused by misl...

Authors: Elena Aminova

The strongness of weak signals: self-reference and paradox in anticipatory systems

Social sciences are experiencing an anticipatory turn. A core issue of this turn are the so-called ‘weak signals’. In order to speak of this type of signals, we must use the distinction between weak and strong...

Authors: Alberto Cevolini

“They are all Turks, but very very nice”: Re-placing contemporary artists of Turkish origin

Contemporary visual artists from Turkey, who have left their ‘home’ for various reasons, such as migration or education, have emerged as a distinctive voice on the contemporary European art scene. What makes t...

Authors: Lora Sarıaslan

Erratum to: How to justify beliefs about the future - some epistemological remarks

Authors: Matthias Sonk

Futures of European welfare models and policies: seeking actual research questions, and new problem-solving arsenal for European welfare states

The key research question is to discuss and elaborate the potential value added that futures studies could provide for European citizens and political, social and economic institutions. In the article the prob...

Authors: Andres Viia, Anu Toots, Barbara Černič Mali, Bostjan Kerbler, Erik F. Øverland, Erik Terk, Külliki Tafel-Viia, Jari Kaivo-oja, Joe Finnerty, Mairéad Considine, Richard Sendi and Silja Lassur

Assessing the maturity level of foresight in Polish companies—a regional perspective

In the face of accelerated change and genuine uncertainties in the business environment as well as the need of processing and interpreting the information coming from majority of sources, foresight research in...

Authors: Anna Kononiuk and Anna Sacio-Szymańska

The futures Map and its quality criteria

The article discusses quality criteria for futures research in the frame of so-called ‘Futures Map’. This article is the edited and developed version of the article (Futura 1: 60-77, 2015). Based on the comments ...

Authors: Osmo Kuusi, Kerstin Cuhls and Karlheinz Steinmüller

The topical collection on quality criteria for futures research: a short introduction

Authors: Osmo Kuusi, Kerstin Cuhls and Karlheinz Steinmüller

The changing nature of city tourism and its possible implications for the future of cities

City tourism is one of the fastest growing travel segments worldwide [18] and the changing nature of city tourism becomes increasingly apparent in many cities. Facilitated by mobile access to information, tourist...

Authors: Kerstin Bock

A new path in foresight validation? Discussing the socio-epistemic underpinning of foresight quality criteria

At present, there are different attempts to establish quality criteria for foresight based on both, the epistemic and the procedural level and all these attempts contribute to a scientific discourse on foresig...

Authors: Erduana Shala