Strategic Foresight

Strategic foresight is a fairly recent attempt to differentiate "futurology" from "futures studies". It arises from the premise that:

• The future is not predictable;
• The future is not predetermined; and
• Future outcomes can be influenced by our choices in the present.

Strategic foresight may be used as part of the corporate foresight in large companies. It is also used within various levels of Government and Not for Profit organisations. Many concepts and tools are also suited to 'personal futures' thinking.

Strategic foresight can be practiced at multiple levels, three different levels being:

1. Pragmatic foresight - "Carrying out tomorrows' business better"
2. Progressive foresight - "Going beyond conventional thinking and practices and reformulating processes, products, and services using quite different assumptions"
3. Civilisational foresight - "Seeks to understand the aspects of the next civilisation - the one that lies beyond the current impasse, the prevailing hegemony of techno/industrial/capitalist interests".

Two approaches to futures studies that are especially focussed at those last two levels of strategic foresight are Critical futures and Integral futures.

Strategic Foresight Group defines foresight as a combination of forecasting with insight. While forecasting requires methodologies, generated by computers or otherwise, insight requires deep understanding of the subject concerned. Foresight is developed by applying forecasting methodology to the insight. Strategic Foresight relates to foresight of strategic issues. Thus, strategic foresight can be developed by scientific study. It is not about intuition or guess work. The difference between strategic foresight and futurology is that strategic foresight provides alternative scenarios for the future. Futurology attempts to provide a definitive picture of the future.