Pub Date : 2025-07-09DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2025.103653
Jonathan L. Calof
For several years, foresight and competitive intelligence (CI) professionals have worked together, learning from each other and adopting each other's approaches. For example, in 2024 an affiliation agreement was signed between a CI and a foresight association. This article examines this professional development and looks at the extent to which academia has done the same. A SCOPUS search for articles that included both "competitive intelligence" and "foresight" in the keywords yielded very little: only 10 articles were found, and only two had both foresight and CI team members. Research ideas and approaches are suggested that can help each field individually and also collectively that could fill this void and potentially provide guidance to practitioners.
{"title":"Synergies between competitive intelligence and foresight: Towards a joint research agenda","authors":"Jonathan L. Calof","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103653","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103653","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>For several years, foresight and competitive intelligence (CI) professionals have worked together, learning from each other and adopting each other's approaches. For example, in 2024 an affiliation agreement was signed between a CI and a foresight association. This article examines this professional development and looks at the extent to which academia has done the same. A SCOPUS search for articles that included both \"competitive intelligence\" and \"foresight\" in the keywords yielded very little: only 10 articles were found, and only two had both foresight and CI team members. Research ideas and approaches are suggested that can help each field individually and also collectively that could fill this void and potentially provide guidance to practitioners.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 103653"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144632843","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-09DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2025.103652
Carin Graminius, Jutta Haider
Air quality apps are designed to observe air quality and inform publics about it, but also to elicit actions based on anticipated scenarios. As such, they may be seen as anticipatory technologies, cultivating environmental understandings and orienting users toward a specific future. This paper explores the anticipatory assemblages of these apps as well as users’ interactions with these apps and their implicit anticipatory practices. We argue that the assemblage of human and non-human actors that constitutes air quality apps presents air pollution as divorced from human action. Furthermore, proposed actions against air pollution accounted for in air quality apps may not be attuned to the diverse contexts of the users, such as less affluent actors. Moreover, apps have world-making powers, as users follow the advice and actions the apps provide, implicitly contributing to the vision of the future the apps present. The field of future studies thereby has a role to play in emphasizing implicit modes of anticipatory practices and their embeddedness in everyday items and actions.
{"title":"Anticipating airpocalypse: Air quality apps and implicit modes of anticipatory practices","authors":"Carin Graminius, Jutta Haider","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103652","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103652","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Air quality apps are designed to observe air quality and inform publics about it, but also to elicit actions based on anticipated scenarios. As such, they may be seen as anticipatory technologies, cultivating environmental understandings and orienting users toward a specific future. This paper explores the anticipatory assemblages of these apps as well as users’ interactions with these apps and their implicit anticipatory practices. We argue that the assemblage of human and non-human actors that constitutes air quality apps presents air pollution as divorced from human action. Furthermore, proposed actions against air pollution accounted for in air quality apps may not be attuned to the diverse contexts of the users, such as less affluent actors. Moreover, apps have world-making powers, as users follow the advice and actions the apps provide, implicitly contributing to the vision of the future the apps present. The field of future studies thereby has a role to play in emphasizing implicit modes of anticipatory practices and their embeddedness in everyday items and actions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 103652"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144632842","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-08DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2025.103649
Ian Townend , Denise Baden , James Baker , Jan Buermann , Ian Dawson , Wassim Dbouk , John A. Dearing , C. Patrick Doncaster , Felix Eigenbrod , Tim Hellmann , Rebecca B. Hoyle , Antonella Ianni , Hachem Kassem , Konstantinos Katsikopoulos , Martin Kunc , Massimiliano Manfren , Alasdair Marshall , Wonyong Park , Dhritiraj Sengupta , Vanissa Wanick
Businesses, planners and policy makers must make decisions that influence a future about which they have incomplete knowledge. Whilst knowing the future may be illusive, the capacity to adapt as required, is desirable for both organisations and society. We examine what different perspectives can offer, considering how empirical-analytical (e.g., modelling, data), narrative-experiential (e.g., fiction, history, gaming), and socio-technological (e.g., AI, social media) approaches contribute to anticipating futures. From this overview we detect a fundamental role of narrative as a framing device, and we examine various aspects of its inescapable value no matter what the perspective. We assert that whilst narratives are important to the success of planning activities and to their subsequent uptake and utility, they are no guarantee of success, serving only to animate the body of experience. We identify that a good narrative starts an evidence-based process which is dynamic and evolves as others engage with it; little is achieved without engagement. Narratives can shift focus or intention, or become hijacked, and the evolving narrative becomes an emergent property of a complex system with no one person or group controlling the process. We argue that an understanding of the essential role of narrative is critical in considering futures, and in achieving desirable outcomes. To this end we identify narratives as complex dynamic systems that involve multiple actors and feedback loops. A better understanding of the drivers of such dynamics is needed as a precursor to developing techniques to limit the potential for narrative distortion or derailing.
{"title":"Anticipating futures: Understanding the fundamental importance of narratives through an integrative interdisciplinary approach","authors":"Ian Townend , Denise Baden , James Baker , Jan Buermann , Ian Dawson , Wassim Dbouk , John A. Dearing , C. Patrick Doncaster , Felix Eigenbrod , Tim Hellmann , Rebecca B. Hoyle , Antonella Ianni , Hachem Kassem , Konstantinos Katsikopoulos , Martin Kunc , Massimiliano Manfren , Alasdair Marshall , Wonyong Park , Dhritiraj Sengupta , Vanissa Wanick","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103649","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103649","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Businesses, planners and policy makers must make decisions that influence a future about which they have incomplete knowledge. Whilst knowing the future may be illusive, the capacity to adapt as required, is desirable for both organisations and society. We examine what different perspectives can offer, considering how empirical-analytical (e.g., modelling, data), narrative-experiential (e.g., fiction, history, gaming), and socio-technological (e.g., AI, social media) approaches contribute to anticipating futures. From this overview we detect a fundamental role of narrative as a framing device, and we examine various aspects of its inescapable value no matter what the perspective. We assert that whilst narratives are important to the success of planning activities and to their subsequent uptake and utility, they are no guarantee of success, serving only to animate the body of experience. We identify that a good narrative starts an evidence-based process which is dynamic and evolves as others engage with it; little is achieved without engagement. Narratives can shift focus or intention, or become hijacked, and the evolving narrative becomes an emergent property of a complex system with no one person or group controlling the process. We argue that an understanding of the essential role of narrative is critical in considering futures, and in achieving desirable outcomes. To this end we identify narratives as complex dynamic systems that involve multiple actors and feedback loops. A better understanding of the drivers of such dynamics is needed as a precursor to developing techniques to limit the potential for narrative distortion or derailing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 103649"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144654364","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-07DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2025.103650
Christine Aicardi , Tara Mahfoud , Nikolas Rose
Foresight is central to facilitating Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) for future and emerging technology. Foresight enables anticipatory action that can help shape upstream development pathways in socially desirable ways and build capacity to cope with potential risks. In this paper, we discuss our experience of conducting futures studies of emerging science and technology as part of an overall RRI strategy in the context of the Human Brain Project (HBP), a Future and Emerging Technology Flagship of the European Commission. We demonstrate the value, limitations, and constraints of framing anticipation work within a RRI approach as we outline the range of experiments and activities the HBP’s Foresight Lab pursued, and the experience and lessons that followed.
{"title":"Experiments in anticipation: Learning from Responsible Research and Innovation in the Human Brain Project","authors":"Christine Aicardi , Tara Mahfoud , Nikolas Rose","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103650","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103650","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Foresight is central to facilitating Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) for future and emerging technology. Foresight enables anticipatory action that can help shape upstream development pathways in socially desirable ways and build capacity to cope with potential risks. In this paper, we discuss our experience of conducting futures studies of emerging science and technology as part of an overall RRI strategy in the context of the Human Brain Project (HBP), a Future and Emerging Technology Flagship of the European Commission. We demonstrate the value, limitations, and constraints of framing anticipation work within a RRI approach as we outline the range of experiments and activities the HBP’s Foresight Lab pursued, and the experience and lessons that followed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 103650"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144654363","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-03DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2025.103648
Robert Lundberg, Sarah Pink, Zane Pinyon
In this article we argue that to adequately investigate futures across disciplines a genuinely interdisciplinary agenda is required, through which futures might be collectively conceived (if not agreed on) and that the most urgent first step is to establish interdisciplinary common ground. We examine how the use of concepts in scholarship can be mobilised for this purpose, and we propose engaging interdisciplinary concepts in futures research. In doing so we draw on our ethnographic review of existing futures-focused academic literatures. Our research revealed an abundance of diverse futures theory, however it suggested greater possibility to create spaces for interdisciplinary convergence, debate and potential collaboration at the conceptual level. We propose a conceptual framework composed of three layers or categories: ontological framing concepts, epistemological encountering concepts and phenomenological experiential concepts. We explore the relations within and between these layers of concepts to propose that our framework might be used in two ways: to generate collaboration focused on the concepts; and to track the possible consequences of alignments between concepts from different categories.
{"title":"Interdisciplinary futures? A conceptual approach","authors":"Robert Lundberg, Sarah Pink, Zane Pinyon","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103648","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103648","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this article we argue that to adequately investigate futures across disciplines a genuinely interdisciplinary agenda is required, through which futures might be collectively conceived (if not agreed on) and that the most urgent first step is to establish interdisciplinary common ground. We examine how the use of concepts in scholarship can be mobilised for this purpose, and we propose engaging interdisciplinary concepts in futures research. In doing so we draw on our ethnographic review of existing futures-focused academic literatures. Our research revealed an abundance of diverse futures theory, however it suggested greater possibility to create spaces for interdisciplinary convergence, debate and potential collaboration at the conceptual level. We propose a conceptual framework composed of three layers or categories: ontological framing concepts, epistemological encountering concepts and phenomenological experiential concepts. We explore the relations within and between these layers of concepts to propose that our framework might be used in two ways: to generate collaboration focused on the concepts; and to track the possible consequences of alignments between concepts from different categories.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 103648"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144564107","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-01DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2025.103647
Danilo Brozović , Per Carlborg , Nina Hasche
This article extends the exploration of potential futures as envisioned in science fiction (SF) literature by analyzing how emerging trends are portrayed through a structured analytical framework. Specifically, it examines award-winning SF novels, focusing on political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental (PESTLE) dimensions as imagined by prominent authors within the genre. Thus, the purpose of the article is to provide an overview of emerging trends and tendencies within imagined futures as depicted in acclaimed SF literature, framed through the lens of PESTLE analysis. To this end, four future scenarios were extrapolated from a selection of 42 novels that have either won or been nominated for major SF awards—the Nebula and the Hugo. These scenarios are: Solar System Expansion, Cyber High-Tech Future, Post-Contraction Society, and Dystopian Future. Each scenario is assessed according to its political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental characteristics.
{"title":"Exploring futures through science fiction: A scenario-based PESTLE analysis of award-winning SF novels","authors":"Danilo Brozović , Per Carlborg , Nina Hasche","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103647","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103647","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article extends the exploration of potential futures as envisioned in science fiction (SF) literature by analyzing how emerging trends are portrayed through a structured analytical framework. Specifically, it examines award-winning SF novels, focusing on political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental (PESTLE) dimensions as imagined by prominent authors within the genre. Thus, the purpose of the article is to provide an overview of emerging trends and tendencies within imagined futures as depicted in acclaimed SF literature, framed through the lens of PESTLE analysis. To this end, four future scenarios were extrapolated from a selection of 42 novels that have either won or been nominated for major SF awards—the Nebula and the Hugo. These scenarios are: <em>Solar System Expansion</em>, <em>Cyber High-Tech Future</em>, <em>Post-Contraction Society</em>, and <em>Dystopian Future</em>. Each scenario is assessed according to its political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental characteristics.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 103647"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144536039","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-29DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2025.103646
Kyle A. Thompson , Joost M. Vervoort , Alenda Chang
The games sector is acknowledged as a major actor in the current media landscape. Games have been studied as a medium that can inspire new futures. But games are part of enormously popular wider media ecosystems where public reflections in the form of reviews, video essays, podcasts and more play a major role. These public reflections have not been examined in a futures context as a site for societal reflection on utopia. This paper combines theories on utopia as method, on resonance, and on orientation to action to create a framework for understanding the societal value of public reflections on games. Selecting four popular games with utopian elements, we coded a number of games reviews, podcasts and video essays about these games to surface common themes found in these public reflections. We find that engagements with the specifics of worldbuilding, of language and in-game community are connected with various resonances described in the public reflections, tied to a variety of affects. We go on to discuss how resonance can help understand how public reflections on games act as a site for societal orientation. Public reflections on games can orient further game design as well as orienting societal discourse and action.
{"title":"Understanding games as a site of utopian resonance","authors":"Kyle A. Thompson , Joost M. Vervoort , Alenda Chang","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103646","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103646","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The games sector is acknowledged as a major actor in the current media landscape. Games have been studied as a medium that can inspire new futures. But games are part of enormously popular wider media ecosystems where public reflections in the form of reviews, video essays, podcasts and more play a major role. These public reflections have not been examined in a futures context as a site for societal reflection on utopia. This paper combines theories on utopia as method, on resonance, and on orientation to action to create a framework for understanding the societal value of public reflections on games. Selecting four popular games with utopian elements, we coded a number of games reviews, podcasts and video essays about these games to surface common themes found in these public reflections. We find that engagements with the specifics of worldbuilding, of language and in-game community are connected with various resonances described in the public reflections, tied to a variety of affects. We go on to discuss how resonance can help understand how public reflections on games act as a site for societal orientation. Public reflections on games can orient further game design as well as orienting societal discourse and action.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 103646"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144556733","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-25DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2025.103645
Fátima Alves , Diogo Guedes Vidal , Helena Freitas
This paper provides diverse perspectives on ecological transition in five European countries, emphasising how differing values, economic interests, cultural models, and social positions influence perceptions of transition. The widespread dissemination of this concept without considering different viewpoints and limitations may undermine collective efforts to achieve it. For this purpose, we conducted 45 interviews with politicians, scientists, non-governmental organisations, representatives from economic groups, and citizens in the context of the H2020 European project "PHOENIX". The results demonstrate the diversity of perspectives on ecological transition and show that pro-ecological actions are heavily influenced by institutional, political, and financial frameworks rather than being solely personal preferences. The lack of support from institutions that serve as role models in this ecological transition undermined community attempts to achieve it, as well as the apparent contradiction between comfort and living a more frugal lifestyle. To successfully engage people in this transition, it is vital to push for legislation that prioritises environmental goals over corporate profit, promotes engagement with nature from a young age, and overcomes financial barriers by offering incentives and support for sustainable choices. We argue that in order to move beyond a technocratic approach and towards an inclusive and socio-politically engaging transition, future policies must recognise and overcome these structural constraints.
{"title":"Unveiling the plurality of visions for the ecological transition in Europe","authors":"Fátima Alves , Diogo Guedes Vidal , Helena Freitas","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103645","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103645","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper provides diverse perspectives on ecological transition in five European countries, emphasising how differing values, economic interests, cultural models, and social positions influence perceptions of transition. The widespread dissemination of this concept without considering different viewpoints and limitations may undermine collective efforts to achieve it. For this purpose, we conducted 45 interviews with politicians, scientists, non-governmental organisations, representatives from economic groups, and citizens in the context of the H2020 European project \"PHOENIX\". The results demonstrate the diversity of perspectives on ecological transition and show that pro-ecological actions are heavily influenced by institutional, political, and financial frameworks rather than being solely personal preferences. The lack of support from institutions that serve as role models in this ecological transition undermined community attempts to achieve it, as well as the apparent contradiction between comfort and living a more frugal lifestyle. To successfully engage people in this transition, it is vital to push for legislation that prioritises environmental goals over corporate profit, promotes engagement with nature from a young age, and overcomes financial barriers by offering incentives and support for sustainable choices. We argue that in order to move beyond a technocratic approach and towards an inclusive and socio-politically engaging transition, future policies must recognise and overcome these structural constraints.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 103645"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144502788","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-24DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2025.103642
Lauri Laine
This article explores entrepreneurship as an object of hope. The agenda is to push forward critical entrepreneurship studies (CES) that challenge the shortcomings of mainstream approaches while affirming transformative and emancipatory possibilities. The basic argument is that CES’ emphasis on more radically disruptive conceptions and uses for entrepreneurship reflects a broader belief in human agency as the key to unlocking alternative futures. But if the Anthropocene is the manifestation of human agency’s hegemony and destructivity towards the Earth, then it becomes a matter of urgency to affirm the (entrepreneurial) agency of nonhuman beings. Forgoing the hope for a ‘happy ending’ could lead to the emergence of more-than-human entrepreneurship as a new topic of future-oriented inquiry.
{"title":"Entrepreneurship as an object of hope: Affirmative critique in the Anthropocene","authors":"Lauri Laine","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103642","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103642","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article explores entrepreneurship as an object of hope. The agenda is to push forward critical entrepreneurship studies (CES) that challenge the shortcomings of mainstream approaches while affirming transformative and emancipatory possibilities. The basic argument is that CES’ emphasis on more radically disruptive conceptions and uses for entrepreneurship reflects a broader belief in human agency as the key to unlocking alternative futures. But if the Anthropocene is the manifestation of human agency’s hegemony and destructivity towards the Earth, then it becomes a matter of urgency to affirm the (entrepreneurial) agency of nonhuman beings. Forgoing the hope for a ‘happy ending’ could lead to the emergence of more-than-human entrepreneurship as a new topic of future-oriented inquiry.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 103642"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144490024","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-23DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2025.103644
Nicholas J. Rowland , David J. Grüning
This article returns to Alex Faickney Osborn’s iconic 1953 book Applied Imagination in which the process of “brainstorming” was first introduced to academic audiences. In scenario thinking, the capacity to brainstorm is an essential, core component, even if few scholars and practitioners seem to return directly to Osborn’s original insights about the disciplined application of imagination. As the futures and foresight science community braces for the impending impact of artificial intelligence, we return readers to the fact that Osborn’s work, some 70 years ago, which championed human creativity, was written during the rise of the first “electronic brains” (i.e., computers) and all the potential implications of computing power for individuals in all realms of the thought industry. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to bring those AIs together in the context of scenario thinking; to recover seemingly lost insights from Osborn’s notion of Applied Imagination and consider what those insights mean for our contemporary context rife with the opportunities but also concerns of Artificial Intelligence.
{"title":"AI-assisted braintstorming for scenario thinking","authors":"Nicholas J. Rowland , David J. Grüning","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103644","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103644","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article returns to Alex Faickney Osborn’s iconic 1953 book <em>Applied Imagination</em> in which the process of “brainstorming” was first introduced to academic audiences. In scenario thinking, the capacity to brainstorm is an essential, core component, even if few scholars and practitioners seem to return directly to Osborn’s original insights about the disciplined application of imagination. As the futures and foresight science community braces for the impending impact of artificial intelligence, we return readers to the fact that Osborn’s work, some 70 years ago, which championed human creativity, was written during the rise of the first “electronic brains” (i.e., computers) and all the potential implications of computing power for individuals in all realms of the thought industry. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to bring those AIs together in the context of scenario thinking; to recover seemingly lost insights from Osborn’s notion of Applied Imagination and consider what those insights mean for our contemporary context rife with the opportunities but also concerns of Artificial Intelligence.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 103644"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144556732","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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