FUTURES & FORESIGHT SCIENCE最新文献

Recent climatic events, such as coastal erosion, floods, and elevated temperatures, threaten the planet's sustainability and the well-being of European coastal cities. These events are expected to increase significantly, emphasizing the urgent need for careful analysis to inform policy development and prevent dystopian scenarios. In the Futures Studies (FS) context, the development of future scenarios is essential for depicting long-term outcomes and facilitating effective planning, which can be achieved using various methods, including the Real-Time Spatial Delphi. This paper applies to the Delphi-based spatial scenario (DBSS), adopting a novel web-based open platform, to obtain spatial convergence of opinions among a panel of experts using spatial analysis and statistical indicators. The DBSS method was applied to 10 European coastal areas in seven different countries, involving 167 experts to assess climate impacts in 2050. This paper introduces for the first time, the concept of Asymptotic Theoretical Consensus to obtain a deeper understanding of the dynamic process, including duration, smoothness of convergence, and stability. The identified scenarios validate the proposed method and provide significant benefits to stakeholders, policymakers, local authorities, and governmental bodies in formulating efficacious strategies and confronting the challenges presented by climate change.

Ecosystem scenarios describe possible, probable and desirable developments of the natural environment in the future, often assessed from a natural scientific (biophysical) and social scientific (socioeconomic) perspective. Processing relevant systemic and human behavioral parameters as scenario factors or drivers, different frameworks for ecosystem scenario building have been developed, applied, and evaluated in scientific literature. Increasingly, stakeholder participation has proven a central objective and challenge for these frameworks defining process designs in transdisciplinary domains such as science-society or science-policy interfaces. This article presents a conceptual framework to advance ecosystem scenario projects towards improved stakeholder participation, knowledge inclusivity and process reflexivity. The framework combines epistemological and methodological elements from futures studies with established research practices in ecosystem assessment projects. The framework's dynamic, adaptive character adds deliberative and reflexive elements to process design and application for a more inclusive and stakeholder-oriented research practice. Its novelty lies in the continuous configuration of process variables derived from common dichotomous elements of theoretical scenario classification applied in scenario practice. This approach benefits integrated knowledge management and inclusivity within the framework for multi-method, multi-stakeholder, multi-sector and multi-epistemic scenario processes. In a wider scope of environmental futures approaches, this article details the development, conceptual outline and preliminary application of the participatory framework for testing and evaluation in an ongoing ecosystem scenario project.

Scenarios are commonly used to support decision-making by evaluating how each decision alternative performs in each scenario. These evaluations are then used to identify the preferred alternative in view of all scenarios. Many suggested approaches interpret scenarios as mutually exclusive states, which enables the use of subjective expected utility (SEU) to aggregate the scenario-specific performance but requires estimates on the scenario probabilities. Other approaches treat scenarios as attributes and utilize multi-attribute value theory (MAVT) to capture alternatives' overall performance, in which case both the likelihood and importance of scenarios are captured by attribute weights. In this paper, we establish a series of theoretical results demonstrating that Pareto optimality serves as a noncontroversial solution concept for both approaches and thus propose using the alternatives' performances in each scenario as the objective functions of a multi-objective optimization model. This allows the use of existing multi-objective optimization approaches, such as Pareto Race and robust portfolio modeling, to support the decision-maker in identifying the preferred alternative. The use of multi-objective optimization avoids the difficult task of eliciting scenario probabilities. We illustrate our ideas with a small-scale example and a scenario-based foresight application, with data from a real-world application.

Case studies developed in real settings are essential to generate insights into Corporate Foresight research, as they provide evidence of the relevance of foresight approaches in practical contexts while inspiring new approaches and applications. Proper reporting of methods used in case study publications is necessary to communicate the results' validity, enable studies' replicability, and learn from practice. A key component of case studies in Corporate Foresight is the design and implementation of participation. Aiming to show how participation has been utilized in the Corporate Foresight field, this study presents a systematic literature review that examines the participatory component of Corporate Foresight case studies published between 2003 and 2023. The review was designed to inform about which contexts have case studies been applied to and which decisions have been supported; which participatory processes and methods have been adopted over time, and whether new processes and methods are being used and shaped by emerging technologies; and whether participatory processes and methods have been documented to enable study replicability and an understanding of participatory processes. For this later purpose, we built a taxonomy to enable analysis of the level of documentation of participation in the reviewed case studies. Results show (i) literature is diverse and growing, but the application of participatory methods is often limited to traditional setups; (ii) few case studies comprehensively describe their participatory component, revealing significant gaps in the documentation required to understand how and why it was designed and implemented. An integrative review helped understand the reasons for these findings and make a case for improving the documentation of participation and exploring the use of novel technologies in Corporate Foresight research. We propose guidelines to help future researchers better document their case studies, enable research replicability, and generate more insights and learnings for future studies.

Since the 1987 UN report “Our Common Future”, aimed at bridging divides among various stakeholders by advocating for “sustainable development”, renewed demands for environmentally adjusted measures have emerged, calling for a future that consolidates socially just, ecologically sound, and economically viable outcomes through sustainable forest management. For Nordic forests, this means policy measures focused on enhancing the forest-based bioeconomy, transitioning to a fossil-free society, adapting to climate change and combatting rapid biodiversity loss while securing continuous timber supply and valuable livelihoods. With expectations for Nordic forests to meet these demands, an impending challenge is how to bring about a desirable future while minimizing uncertainties. Given this urgency, we present a backcasting method applied to a co-creative workshop among research scholars to examine prospective scenarios for Nordic forests, ranging from nightmarish futures to risk-mitigation strategies. The workshop builds on an interdisciplinary research project to provide policy support for sustainable governance. We found that despite fears expressed about an adverse intensive forestry scenario, most participants identified multifunctionality and delivering multiple ecosystem services as critical to the future sustainability of Nordic forests. In addition, participants highlighted the coming need to incorporate hybrid forest management approaches for high-value biodiversity and to consider precautionary measures in forestry decisions. We conclude that approaching the future through a backcasting workshop promises to bring together a broad range of participants to create a common vision.

Hiltunen, E., and Huhtinen, A.-M. 2025. “The Holistic Framework of Time for Warfare.” Futures & Foresight Science 7: e200. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ffo2.200.

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Domain mapping is a necessary yet too-easily overshadowed component of strategic foresight. A domain is defined as any topic that serves as the central focus of a foresight project. Domain mapping is the process of conceptually framing its scope, often by way of participatory brainstorming sessions with subject matter experts. Domain mapping should be thought of as a prerequisite to robust foresight research, a crucial and necessary preliminary step that animates all subsequent processes. Our article has two objectives: to reinvigorate the discussion on the use and utility of domain mapping by illustrating how, why, and when to use the technique; and, using a series of nine domain maps created with hundreds of Canadian public servants between 2018 and 2024, to test a novel approach for empirically evaluating the cumulative results of domain mapping by comparatively assessing the thematic shifts policy practitioners have attributed to the future(s) of diplomacy and international affairs. Our approach illustrates how longitudinal empirical studies of domain maps can shed light on the emerging and shifting perspectives of foresight experts and policy practitioners. The paper highlights nine separate uses for the technique, identifies where foresight and domain mapping are currently used within the Canadian government, analyzes an original set of related domain maps, and provides lessons on facilitating, using, and applying domain mapping with a focus on representation, group dynamics, and data quality.