This paper explores the question of engaging futures narratives to support and create transformational futures for organizations and social change efforts. Understanding organizational and social change and seeking fundamental change within organizations and social contexts requires deeper understandings of transformational learning and change at both individual and social...
As climate change and evolving international dynamics shape the Arctic, governance in the region is attracting heightened attention from major global stakeholders. Arctic governance is a broad concept that encompasses political, economic, legal, and security dimensions, with the overarching goal of fostering peace, stability, and sustainable development in the region. Presently...
This paper aims to identify and discuss the integration of anticipatory practices in the macroeconomic governance regime, an emerging yet crucial dimension in the field. It examines the contextual differences shaping these practices at the intersections of society, innovation, policy, and governance, focusing on the interrelationship between institutions, cultures, and national...
This paper examines the potential integration of trauma-informed practices and Critical Studies on Men and Masculinities (CSMM) into global and European risk research, with a focus on foresight methodologies. It explores how the complex interplay between untreated trauma, rapid resource loss, radicalisation, and rigid masculine norms can potentially escalate societal risks. The...
The internationalization of medical universities is confronted with various uncertainties due to environmental trends. Therefore, obtaining insight into potential future scenarios is essential for adopting exclusive and effective strategies. Accordingly, this study aims to identify future scenarios for the internationalization of Medical Sciences Universities in Iran (MSUI) in...
Foresight plays an important role in public policy development. The foresight learning process brings together various actors in the policy community and incentivizes them to think about the future. It encourages new ways of thinking and approaches to strategy and is a practical approach to using the future to inform decisions and actions in the present. Foresight faces...
The aim of this study is to fill out the gap that exists in the literature by discussing the main problems and barriers to sustainable development in space and the initial proposal to adopt SDG 18. Despite the fact that the subject of the sustainable development of space is little researched, it seems that in order to be able to properly prepare for it, a broader debate on this...
This study focuses on the integration of methods from different theories and research concepts into futures studies in order to better understand the obscure future through the identification of unpredictable and hard-to-predict rare events and factors. Particular emphasis in this study is placed on systems theory, cybernetics, synergetics, theory of chaos, bifurcation theory...
This study presents the validation process of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ) adapted for the IT sector, focusing on its reliability and validity within a German-speaking context (IT professionals in Austria). The COPSOQ is an established instrument for assessing psychosocial work environment factors. While previous research has highlighted its applicability...
The following paper adopts the term Future Orienteering to indicate the attitude of openness and preparedness to the future of individuals, communities and organisations. If Futures Studies wants to become an independent field of research, future skills need to be developed with appropriate training paths, and future attitudes and strategies need to be evaluated accurately. Thus...
Artificial intelligence (AI) demonstrates various opportunities and risks. Our study explores the trade-off of AI technology, including existential risks. We develop a theory and a Bayesian simulation model in order to explore what is at stake. The study reveals four tangible outcomes: (i) regulating existential risks has a boundary solution of either prohibiting the technology...
In recent years, there appears to be a growing consensus among policymakers in both the East and the West, that the decades of global peace after the Cold War has now come to an end, and that the world is facing mounting security risks to the future of humanity. Among those challenges, the ongoing U.S.-Iran conflict poses particularly significant risks to regional and global...
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of many economies. In today's world of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity), SMEs face diverse challenges to survive and stay competitive. SMEs must prepare themselves for these challenges by practicing foresight. However, foresight, and especially corporate foresight, has been conceptualized and...
This paper explores the potential of a multidisciplinary approach to testing and aligning artificial intelligence (AI), specifically focusing on large language models (LLMs). Due to the rapid development and wide application of LLMs, challenges such as ethical alignment, controllability, and predictability of these models emerged as global risks. This study investigates an...
Globally, hunger and malnutrition have been on the rise, with climate change exacerbating food insecurity by affecting food production and accessibility. In international law, the human right to food provides a legal protection for individuals. It emphasises that food should not just meet minimal nutritional needs but ensure the ability to obtain food in a dignified manner. In...
There is common agreement that we are facing a great transition, which poses a challenge for the labour market, too. The expending literature on soft skills reflects the restructuring of the competition factors, and several papers discuss the future of the labour market: what new professions may emerge and what new skills these jobs demand. However, the attention on the...
Islands and small island groups are among the areas most affected by global climate change and face major adaptation challenges. Their role as hotspots of climate change impacts is widely recognized in the scientific literature, and it is not uncommon for small islands to act as poster children for particular climate-related vulnerability. Nonetheless, many island communities...
The world is changing increasingly faster, bringing uncertainty and complexity to many processes, and this acceleration leads to the rise of demand for studies regarding the future. Futures Studies have been widely used to support decision-making, emphasizing forecasting technologies’ timing, diffusion, and life cycle. Therefore, evaluating previous forecasts to understand their...
In honor of its 50th anniversary, the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF) held its XXV World Conference in Paris. The conference provided a venue for reviewing earlier developments and reevaluating prospective directions in the futures field. Scientific-based futures studies has a long history, drawing from a variety of fields including sociology, policy sciences, philosophy...
In response to pressing global challenges, sustainability transitions research has emerged as an interdisciplinary field focused on fundamental changes, necessitating novel approaches for strategy-making from research and innovation. Foresight practitioners need to extend their well-established methodological toolkit, which can inform subsequent planning processes about managing...
Re-reading the risk literature, I sketch a novel nomenclature for 36 dyadic risk interactions that constitute the prototypes of what eventually become cascading effects. This analysis demonstrates where cascading risk effects originate and also hints at how they get their enormous power. Risk dyads derive from basic first-order interactions across six disruptive forces: sci-tech...
Today, assumptions about probable future developments (at least as far as they make use of quantifiable scientific methods and are not pure speculation) are generally based on data from the past. An interesting way to analyze the future through this type of data is text mining or individual methods out of the spectrum of text mining, such as topic modeling. Topic Modeling itself...
In Finland, agriculture is practiced in variable growing conditions that are further challenged by climate change and under external pressure caused by international competition, changing consumer preferences and demands, and the renewal of the European Union Common Agriculture Policy and Paris Agreement climate targets. Futures studies in agriculture have focused on scenario...
With the input of 16 experts from a variety of social studies disciplines—including anthropology, art, communication, curriculum and instruction, economics, geography, history, law, measurement and assessment, philosophy, politics, psychology, social studies education, sociology, technology, and Turkish language and literature—as well as two social studies teachers, the goal of...