Pub Date : 2025-07-18DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2025.103671
Sterre van Buuren , Thomas Fraise , Benoît Pelopidas
Nuclear weapons and environmental change are two existential threats to humanity. This article shows that current policy and academic discourse neglects their possible future interactions and proposes a research agenda to undo this compartmentalization. Based on a comprehensive review of policy documents and scholarship on nuclear and environmental security futures between 1990 and 2024, this article documents the compartmentalization of these threats. It shows that prevalent security imaginaries do not account for interactions and instead treat environmental change and nuclear weapons as different types of security threat. This creates a number of epistemic and material vulnerabilities which must be addressed by scholarship. The article lays out avenues to map out material and political interactions between the two threats. It urges policymakers and scholars to integrate imaginations of the implications of these and other existential threats for the future of humanity.
{"title":"Existential silos: The compartmentalization of the futures of environmental change and the nuclear threat","authors":"Sterre van Buuren , Thomas Fraise , Benoît Pelopidas","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103671","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103671","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Nuclear weapons and environmental change are two existential threats to humanity. This article shows that current policy and academic discourse neglects their possible future interactions and proposes a research agenda to undo this compartmentalization. Based on a comprehensive review of policy documents and scholarship on nuclear and environmental security futures between 1990 and 2024, this article documents the compartmentalization of these threats. It shows that prevalent security imaginaries do not account for interactions and instead treat environmental change and nuclear weapons as different types of security threat. This creates a number of epistemic and material vulnerabilities which must be addressed by scholarship. The article lays out avenues to map out material and political interactions between the two threats. It urges policymakers and scholars to integrate imaginations of the implications of these and other existential threats for the future of humanity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 103671"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144723648","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 : 2025-07-17DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2025.103669
Lucy van Eck , Shirley Kempeneer , Michael Duijn , Gerard Nijboer
Public sector innovation labs (PSI-labs) are emerging as experimental spaces where governments attempt to generate knowledge for navigating uncertain, technology-driven futures. However, the knowledge they produce often remains “liquid”; relational and difficult to embed in traditional bureaucratic structures. This paper investigates these tensions through an ethnographic study of Vonk, Rotterdam’s digital innovation lab which prepares the municipality for emerging digital technologies in policymaking and service delivery.
Based on over 200 h of participant observation and 15 interviews, it examines how knowledge is created, shared, and embedded - or fails to be. Employing Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes as a metaphor, the analysis highlights the relational and processual nature of knowledge in PSI-labs.
The findings reveal that PSI-labs hold potential for future-oriented governance, but face challenges in translating and embedding their "liquid" knowledge. We argue that knowledge becomes actionable through enactment within dynamic actor-networks. Knowledge is thus not merely a product of PSI-labs, but a shared accomplishment that materialises in the “doing”. This paper argues for strategic mechanisms to ensure the visibility and usability of such knowledge. By combining ethnographic insights with creative storytelling, it offers fresh perspectives on the governance of public sector innovation.
{"title":"The public sector’s new knowledge: Narrating the life of liquid knowledge in public sector innovation labs","authors":"Lucy van Eck , Shirley Kempeneer , Michael Duijn , Gerard Nijboer","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103669","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103669","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Public sector innovation labs (PSI-labs) are emerging as experimental spaces where governments attempt to generate knowledge for navigating uncertain, technology-driven futures. However, the knowledge they produce often remains “liquid”; relational and difficult to embed in traditional bureaucratic structures. This paper investigates these tensions through an ethnographic study of Vonk, Rotterdam’s digital innovation lab which prepares the municipality for emerging digital technologies in policymaking and service delivery.</div><div>Based on over 200 h of participant observation and 15 interviews, it examines how knowledge is created, shared, and embedded - or fails to be. Employing Hans Christian Andersen’s <em>The Emperor’s New Clothes</em> as a metaphor, the analysis highlights the relational and processual nature of knowledge in PSI-labs.</div><div>The findings reveal that PSI-labs hold potential for future-oriented governance, but face challenges in translating and embedding their \"liquid\" knowledge. We argue that knowledge becomes actionable through enactment within dynamic actor-networks. Knowledge is thus not merely a product of PSI-labs, but a shared accomplishment that materialises in the “doing”. This paper argues for strategic mechanisms to ensure the visibility and usability of such knowledge. By combining ethnographic insights with creative storytelling, it offers fresh perspectives on the governance of public sector innovation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 103669"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144662473","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 : 2025-07-17DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2025.103667
Shelley Hannigan , Danielle Hradsky , Robin Bellingham , Jo Raphael , Peta J. White
The 21st century is characterised by unprecedented challenges, primarily driven by climate change and rapid technological advancements. This systematic literature review explores arts approaches in climate change education, motivated by a research project, Artefacts of the Future 2050, which invites young people to design and create an artefact representing a significant moment in the transition to our future world. The application of arts-based approaches to futures thinking, or futuring, specifically to sustainability and climate change in education contexts, has been taken up globally, producing encouraging outcomes. To better understand educators and researchers’ growing interest in arts-based approaches to futuring, we systematically selected and reviewed 25 papers from 11 countries involving students and/or teachers across early childhood, primary, secondary, and tertiary settings. Nearly all studies shared a strong awareness of human impacts on the environment and a deep concern for the future. Frequently, arts-based approaches were chosen with the aim of stimulating a transformative shift in young people’s understandings of the world and their place in it. A range of outcomes were reported, including cognitive, emotional, physical, and other (aesthetic, spiritual, imaginative, etc.) effects. The physical nature of these pedagogies was critical to achieving desired educational outcomes. The reviewed show a variety of arts-based methods and disciplinary approaches used to offer affordances for young people in exploring, confronting and engaging with climate change as well as fostering futures literacy. The review also raises questions about what we mean by ‘futures literacy’ and how this can be supported by arts-based education.
{"title":"Reimagining climate change futures: A review of arts-based education programs","authors":"Shelley Hannigan , Danielle Hradsky , Robin Bellingham , Jo Raphael , Peta J. White","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103667","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103667","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The 21st century is characterised by unprecedented challenges, primarily driven by climate change and rapid technological advancements. This systematic literature review explores arts approaches in climate change education, motivated by a research project, Artefacts of the Future 2050, which invites young people to design and create an artefact representing a significant moment in the transition to our future world. The application of arts-based approaches to futures thinking, or <em>futuring</em>, specifically to sustainability and climate change in education contexts, has been taken up globally, producing encouraging outcomes. To better understand educators and researchers’ growing interest in arts-based approaches to futuring, we systematically selected and reviewed 25 papers from 11 countries involving students and/or teachers across early childhood, primary, secondary, and tertiary settings. Nearly all studies shared a strong awareness of human impacts on the environment and a deep concern for the future. Frequently, arts-based approaches were chosen with the aim of stimulating a transformative shift in young people’s understandings of the world and their place in it. A range of outcomes were reported, including cognitive, emotional, physical, and other (aesthetic, spiritual, imaginative, etc.) effects. The physical nature of these pedagogies was critical to achieving desired educational outcomes. The reviewed show a variety of arts-based methods and disciplinary approaches used to offer affordances for young people in exploring, confronting and engaging with climate change as well as fostering futures literacy. The review also raises questions about what we mean by ‘futures literacy’ and how this can be supported by arts-based education.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 103667"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144687552","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}
Debates around the purpose of higher education reflect diverse societal aspirations, from enhancing national economies to addressing sustainability issues and advancing social justice. Educators seeking to contribute to positive social and environmental futures must navigate these varied and sometimes conflicting future visions to identify the capabilities needed for transformative action within their particular context(s). Drawing on diverse areas of literature and over a decade of transdisciplinary education practice, we present a reflexive process of identifying and articulating capabilities to ensure our transdisciplinary education efforts support transformations towards more sustainable, equitable and just futures. Adopting the term 'transdisciplinary future-making capabilities' and drawing on the human development framing of capabilities, we propose a Transdisciplinary Future-making Capability Framework developed through a framework synthesis review. This framework offers an expansive view of capabilities required to create desirable futures, serving as an example of collaborative sensemaking that educators can undertake in navigating and integrating diverse perspectives into their own practice. The paper concludes by highlighting the transformative potential of transdisciplinarity to enrich and redefine higher education approaches.
{"title":"Educating for sustainable and equitable futures: A transdisciplinary future-making capability framework","authors":"Giedre Kligyte , Jacqueline Melvold , Susanne Pratt , Bella Bowdler","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103665","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103665","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Debates around the purpose of higher education reflect diverse societal aspirations, from enhancing national economies to addressing sustainability issues and advancing social justice. Educators seeking to contribute to positive social and environmental futures must navigate these varied and sometimes conflicting future visions to identify the capabilities needed for transformative action within their particular context(s). Drawing on diverse areas of literature and over a decade of transdisciplinary education practice, we present a reflexive process of identifying and articulating capabilities to ensure our transdisciplinary education efforts support transformations towards more sustainable, equitable and just futures. Adopting the term 'transdisciplinary future-making capabilities' and drawing on the human development framing of capabilities, we propose a <em>Transdisciplinary Future-making Capability Framework</em> developed through a framework synthesis review. This framework offers an expansive view of capabilities required to create desirable futures, serving as an example of collaborative sensemaking that educators can undertake in navigating and integrating diverse perspectives into their own practice. The paper concludes by highlighting the transformative potential of transdisciplinarity to enrich and redefine higher education approaches.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 103665"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144687553","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 : 2025-07-17DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2025.103666
Maya Hoveskog , Cecilia Björkén-Nyberg
In today’s turbulent world and a future difficult to anticipate, organizations need to redefine their business logic towards sustainability. Thus, the need for future-making practices is more important than ever. This paper explores speculative storytelling as such a future-making practice and as an instrument for creating an awareness of value proposition for sustainability design. The approach is interdisciplinary building on business model innovation and literary studies. The study uses data provided by short stories composed by non-customer stakeholders to be utilized in the initial stages of designing a value proposition for sustainability. The data was analyzed according to a benefit and sacrifice model capturing the emotional, social and functional values. The data was also studied through a chronotopic lens. The results show that the suggested approach is suitable for the production of narratives to be used as objects for learning and change within the context of value propositions for sustainability.
{"title":"Designing value propositions for sustainability: The use of speculative storytelling to explore future mobility","authors":"Maya Hoveskog , Cecilia Björkén-Nyberg","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103666","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103666","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In today’s turbulent world and a future difficult to anticipate, organizations need to redefine their business logic towards sustainability. Thus, the need for future-making practices is more important than ever. This paper explores speculative storytelling as such a future-making practice and as an instrument for creating an awareness of value proposition for sustainability design. The approach is interdisciplinary building on business model innovation and literary studies. The study uses data provided by short stories composed by non-customer stakeholders to be utilized in the initial stages of designing a value proposition for sustainability. The data was analyzed according to a benefit and sacrifice model capturing the emotional, social and functional values. The data was also studied through a chronotopic lens. The results show that the suggested approach is suitable for the production of narratives to be used as objects for learning and change within the context of value propositions for sustainability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 103666"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144748586","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 : 2025-07-16DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2025.103668
Helmi Räisänen , Emma Hakala , Jussi Ahokas , Roope Kaaronen , Mikael A. Manninen , Tuuli Parviainen , Tero Toivanen , Tere Vadén , Jussi T. Eronen
The significance of several resource-intensive supply chains has been highlighted as societies around the world seek to decarbonize their emissions-intensive sectors. Especially the efforts to modify energy and transport systems are driving a significant increase in global demand for battery minerals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt. Simultaneously, the US–China trade war, COVID-19 and Russian invasion of Ukraine are among some of the recent events that have revealed the vulnerability of complex global supply chains to disruptions. Thus, resilience of supply chains and ‘strategic autonomy’ have gained importance among policymakers. In this paper, we study this emerging governance of resources and of supply chains of green transition through the analytical lens of socio-technical imaginaries. As a case, we focus on the Finnish battery cluster as an application of the European imaginary of strategic autonomy. Based on an interpretive and qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews and publicly available documents, we investigate what kind of geopolitical and ecological order the imaginary of the battery cluster helps to co-produce. The battery cluster imaginary appears as a continuation of previously studied Finnish transition imaginaries that emphasise national economic benefits over ecological ones, and thus the imaginary does not lend itself to systematic transformation of the energy system. While patents and technologies are becoming central in geopolitical competition, material resources remain important.
{"title":"Supply chain imaginaries of the green transition: Resource governance in the Finnish battery cluster","authors":"Helmi Räisänen , Emma Hakala , Jussi Ahokas , Roope Kaaronen , Mikael A. Manninen , Tuuli Parviainen , Tero Toivanen , Tere Vadén , Jussi T. Eronen","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103668","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103668","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The significance of several resource-intensive supply chains has been highlighted as societies around the world seek to decarbonize their emissions-intensive sectors. Especially the efforts to modify energy and transport systems are driving a significant increase in global demand for battery minerals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt. Simultaneously, the US–China trade war, COVID-19 and Russian invasion of Ukraine are among some of the recent events that have revealed the vulnerability of complex global supply chains to disruptions. Thus, resilience of supply chains and ‘strategic autonomy’ have gained importance among policymakers. In this paper, we study this emerging governance of resources and of supply chains of green transition through the analytical lens of socio-technical imaginaries. As a case, we focus on the Finnish battery cluster as an application of the European imaginary of strategic autonomy. Based on an interpretive and qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews and publicly available documents, we investigate what kind of geopolitical and ecological order the imaginary of the battery cluster helps to co-produce. The battery cluster imaginary appears as a continuation of previously studied Finnish transition imaginaries that emphasise national economic benefits over ecological ones, and thus the imaginary does not lend itself to systematic transformation of the energy system. While patents and technologies are becoming central in geopolitical competition, material resources remain important.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 103668"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144662472","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 : 2025-07-15DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2025.103664
Lotte de Jong , Lieke Anna Melsen , Rutgerd Boelens , Gert Jan Veldwisch
Futures are not neutral. Imagining certain futures over others is deeply political and rooted in specific imaginaries. We address this issue by scrutinizing dominant future-making processes in riverine adaptation and elucidate power structures that shape such processes. We describe what future-making processes ground the implementation of adaptation projects, what knowledge strategies are used to (attempt to) ensure certain futures, and what knowledges are actively ignored and marginalized by dominant future-makers and adaptation implementers. To scrutinize dominance in futures and adaptation, we build upon power dynamics of truth regimes in river imaginaries and critiques of modernism in which we highlight how knowing, and not-knowing, are actively produced through manufactured ignorance. We build our understanding of manufactured ignorance by introducing the notion of Hirschman’s hiding hand principle which fundamentally suggests that failure to anticipate unintended consequences and unforeseen complexities is a good thing. We problematize this logic and describe the devastating and violent effects in a case study context of the Lower Magdalena River in Colombia, specifically in the Zapatosa wetland. Our findings suggest that the different futures and adaptation actions resonate with different imaginaries, namely a rooted-amphibian imaginary and an eco-modern imaginary. We suggest that manufactured ignorance, as a part of eco-modernism, leads to increased tensions in the case study area, produces deliberate claims of not-knowing and actively marginalizes those involved with alternative future-making practices. We conclude by arguing that the fundamental misrecognition of rooted imaginaries and related futures, rooted epistemic communities and adaptation practices face disproportionate epistemic and physical violence. This violence is legitimized by the opposing (eco)modernist imaginary through the normalization of manufactured ignorance.
{"title":"Manufacturing ignorance or dealing with complexity? Adaptation politics and the making of river futures in Colombia","authors":"Lotte de Jong , Lieke Anna Melsen , Rutgerd Boelens , Gert Jan Veldwisch","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103664","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103664","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Futures are not neutral. Imagining certain futures over others is deeply political and rooted in specific imaginaries. We address this issue by scrutinizing dominant future-making processes in riverine adaptation and elucidate power structures that shape such processes. We describe what future-making processes ground the implementation of adaptation projects, what knowledge strategies are used to (attempt to) ensure certain futures, and what knowledges are actively ignored and marginalized by dominant future-makers and adaptation implementers. To scrutinize dominance in futures and adaptation, we build upon power dynamics of truth regimes in river imaginaries and critiques of modernism in which we highlight how knowing, and not-knowing, are actively produced through manufactured ignorance. We build our understanding of manufactured ignorance by introducing the notion of Hirschman’s hiding hand principle which fundamentally suggests that failure to anticipate unintended consequences and unforeseen complexities is a good thing. We problematize this logic and describe the devastating and violent effects in a case study context of the Lower Magdalena River in Colombia, specifically in the Zapatosa wetland. Our findings suggest that the different futures and adaptation actions resonate with different imaginaries, namely a rooted-amphibian imaginary and an eco-modern imaginary. We suggest that manufactured ignorance, as a part of eco-modernism, leads to increased tensions in the case study area, produces deliberate claims of not-knowing and actively marginalizes those involved with alternative future-making practices. We conclude by arguing that the fundamental misrecognition of rooted imaginaries and related futures, rooted epistemic communities and adaptation practices face disproportionate epistemic and physical violence. This violence is legitimized by the opposing (eco)modernist imaginary through the normalization of manufactured ignorance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 103664"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144654365","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 : 2025-07-12DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2025.103654
Merlijn J. Koch , Anneke M. Sools , Godelieve H.J. Spaas , Gerben J. Westerhof
This study presents an integrative literature review of Futures Education to analyze and synthesize fragmented knowledge on learning Futures Consciousness (FC)—the capability to envision and critically reflect on possible futures. As an essential competency for addressing complex societal challenges, FC also enhances individual agency, well-being, and collective engagement. Using the 3-P model, the framework systematically analyzes how contextual (Presage), processual (Process), and outcome-related (Product) factors shape the development of FC in formal and informal educational settings. The findings reveal critical gaps in Futures Education research, including the underrepresentation of dimensions of FC, such as "Concern for Others," limited understanding of contextual influences, and the lack of systematic evaluation of challenges encountered in the learning process. Additionally, the roles of educators and the impact of diverse learner backgrounds remain underexplored. This study highlights the need for future research to clearly define intervention contexts, goals, participant diversity, learning processes, and durations. The framework of this study serves as a lens for advancing research, educational design, and evaluation in Futures Education. By highlighting critical gaps and areas for improvement and fostering meaningful exchange on learning FC, it facilitates the development of more effective educational programs, equipping individuals to navigate uncertainty and drive meaningful societal transformation.
{"title":"Learning Futures Consciousness: An integrative review","authors":"Merlijn J. Koch , Anneke M. Sools , Godelieve H.J. Spaas , Gerben J. Westerhof","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103654","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103654","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study presents an integrative literature review of Futures Education to analyze and synthesize fragmented knowledge on learning Futures Consciousness (FC)—the capability to envision and critically reflect on possible futures. As an essential competency for addressing complex societal challenges, FC also enhances individual agency, well-being, and collective engagement. Using the 3-P model, the framework systematically analyzes how contextual (Presage), processual (Process), and outcome-related (Product) factors shape the development of FC in formal and informal educational settings. The findings reveal critical gaps in Futures Education research, including the underrepresentation of dimensions of FC, such as \"Concern for Others,\" limited understanding of contextual influences, and the lack of systematic evaluation of challenges encountered in the learning process. Additionally, the roles of educators and the impact of diverse learner backgrounds remain underexplored. This study highlights the need for future research to clearly define intervention contexts, goals, participant diversity, learning processes, and durations. The framework of this study serves as a lens for advancing research, educational design, and evaluation in Futures Education. By highlighting critical gaps and areas for improvement and fostering meaningful exchange on learning FC, it facilitates the development of more effective educational programs, equipping individuals to navigate uncertainty and drive meaningful societal transformation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 103654"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144694754","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 : 2025-07-10DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2025.103651
Steven Curnin , Benjamin Brooks , Oliver Brooks , Syed Adeel Akhtar
The global pandemic, cybersecurity breaches, and ongoing geopolitical shocks have demonstrated that corporations are often ill-prepared for uncertainty and resultant crises. A crisis requires top management teams to make strategic decisions that are often informed by a range of plausible future scenarios. This article investigates if teams with little or no experience in scenario planning can be trained to rapidly develop high-quality scenarios in the context of crisis management. It uses an empirical data set from a training intervention for a longitudinal study that involved teams of executives involved in crisis management at three large, publicly listed Australian corporations. The results identified that over a sequence of training events, teams improved the quality of their scenarios even while reducing the amount of available time they had to develop the scenarios. The results cannot simply be explained by the learning effect, but the initiatives used by the teams to speed up the process whilst maintaining scenario quality. The research has implications for other dynamic areas of practice where scenario planning may be deployed, and time is constrained.
{"title":"Learning for uncertain futures: Training teams to rapidly develop scenarios during organisational crises","authors":"Steven Curnin , Benjamin Brooks , Oliver Brooks , Syed Adeel Akhtar","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103651","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2025.103651","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The global pandemic, cybersecurity breaches, and ongoing geopolitical shocks have demonstrated that corporations are often ill-prepared for uncertainty and resultant crises. A crisis requires top management teams to make strategic decisions that are often informed by a range of plausible future scenarios. This article investigates if teams with little or no experience in scenario planning can be trained to rapidly develop high-quality scenarios in the context of crisis management. It uses an empirical data set from a training intervention for a longitudinal study that involved teams of executives involved in crisis management at three large, publicly listed Australian corporations. The results identified that over a sequence of training events, teams improved the quality of their scenarios even while reducing the amount of available time they had to develop the scenarios. The results cannot simply be explained by the learning effect, but the initiatives used by the teams to speed up the process whilst maintaining scenario quality. The research has implications for other dynamic areas of practice where scenario planning may be deployed, and time is constrained.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 103651"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144654362","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.2025.103653
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}
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