Foresight Innovations
Transformative change only happens when everyone
—people, groups, and leaders—works together.
Supporting transformation
Our work builds on research and practice using foresight to drive systems and sector transformation in more than 50 countries. This has led to a deep understanding of futures, people and systems and how to help systems unlock to create transformative futures.
We integrate these approaches to provide insights, build capability and support change for people in countries, organisations and communities.
Transformative foresight triangle
Leading thinking
Building future-facing, future-ready organisations and institutions is hard.
As experts in the use of foresight in government and governance we work to help people:
- Harness foresight for change
- Build their foresight ecosystem and embed foresight capability
- Conducting local and national listening exercises harnessing
participatory foresight - Drive innovation in sectors and systems
- Reimagine effective democratic practice
We do this collaboratively with our globally diverse community, made of friends and collaborators formed across the futures and foresight space where new perspectives, challenges and insights are shared.
Selected publications
Operationalizing Strategic Foresight
Read SOIF Director, Cat Tully’s chapter on Operationalizing Strategic Foresight to Better Support Governments in Managing Sustainable Development Goal Trade-Offs and Synergies in the Post-COVID Context in the UN Word Public Sector Report 2023.
Features of effective systemic foresight in governments globally
Report carried out by the School of International Futures (SOIF) for the UK Government Office for Science.The report sets out a framework for building capability in ecosystems drawing on examples from eight governments.
Putting ideas into practice
We design and build scalable approaches and coalitions for change . These are designed to unlock effective transitions and long-term decision-making in three ways: with citizens, with organisations and with leaders.
Transformation missions
Our Foresight Transformation Missions are where we’re seeing a need for cutting edge thinking and a need for change .
Intergenerational fairness collaboratory
Putting intergenerational fairness into practice and helping decision-makers act in ways that are intergenerationally fair.
National Strategy for Next Generations
Building infrastructure to connect citizen participation into long term planning at the national level.
Weaving networks to catalyse change
We weave, incubate and scale networks of social change agents. We empower people who are working for better futures at a community, systemic and global level.
The Next Generation
Next Generation Foresight Practitioners: one of the largest global networks of future-alert changemakers with 600 members from over 90 countries across 6 continents.
Futures Pioneers
Hosted by our IGF collaboratory, this international network of government officials is building and sharing practice in future generations, wellbeing economics and long -term decision-making.
Developing infrastructure and tools
Developing, testing and rolling out approaches that incentivise decision-makers, organisations and communities to act in ways that are intergenerationally fair:
- Case studies and good practice Researching what matters: how to use foresight building to help ecosystems and organisations to become more agile and anticipatory, and supporting our leaders to make better long-term decisions.
- Foresight toolkits Drawing on our expertise in strategic and transformational foresight to build toolkits that help people to start using foresight, showcasing not just methods but how to design effective interventions.
- Supporting learning Designing and delivering learning programmes that drive individual, organisational capability learning in applying foresight and futures.
Toolkits and resources
For decision-makers
Beyond Strategic Planning: A Foresight Toolkit for Decision Makers: A toolkit developed for California 100. I introduces a simple, pragmatic approach to using foresight, including access to tools, resources and approaches that you can use to get better at navigating change under conditions of deep uncertainty.
For policy educators
A toolkit for people offering courses or modules on foresight methods and applications. It provides structured modules, resources for further reading, and inspiration for projects and classroom activities.
For leaders committed to intergenerational fairness
This toolkit is designed as a primer and introduction to intergenerational fairness and how it can be applied to create better decisions. It builds on a multi-year collaboration between the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the School of International Futures to define a framework for the systematic evaluation of public policies according to what is fair and unfair for all generations.
For Save the Children
This toolkit was developed for the strategic foresight
programme at Save the Children UK. It provides 12 tools for the humanitarian sector that can support policy, strategy and planning. It prioritised techniques that combine evidence and creativity and are mostly to
help teams and organisations create collective wisdom and embed learning in decision-making.
For Community Foresight
This partnership with WCVA used participatory foresight approaches to engage with, learn from and understand the visions and aspirations of diverse communities in Wales.The toolkit shares the approach to support
community dialogue.