About Futures Studies

What is Futures Studies?

Futures studies is an art and a science with a strong emphasis on imagination and creativity in creating different possible futures. Its main purpose is to discover and master the complex chains of cause and effect through conceptualization, systemic approach, and feedback loops, ultimately providing innovation in the social and technological fields. [Read more here].

Futures studies, rooted in sociology and policy sciences, had become an academic discipline by the 1960s. One of the major global communities representing the discipline, the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF), celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2023. [Read more here].

Futures studies is the systematic study of possible, probable and preferable futures including the worldviews and myths that underlie each future. In the last fifty or so years, the study of the future has moved from predicting or forecasting the future to mapping alternative futures to shaping desired futures and sometimes anticipation for emergence, i.e. embracing novelty, uncertainty, complexity and emergence, both at external collective levels and inner individual levels. [Read more here].

The academic lecture Evolving Pathways of the Futures Studies Histories in the World, traces the historical development of futures studies. Beginning with an exploration of its roots from ancient to modern times, the lecture covers the identification of waves, traditions, and schools that have shaped the discipline. It highlights the influential authors and milestone publications contributing to its evolution. The institutionalization of futures studies, its connections to related disciplines, and its role place in research, education, and academia are examined. The lecture also deals with the practical dimensions, addressing the professionalization of the field as a trade or industry and its application in real-world contexts. Notably, the speaker emphasizes the often-overlooked non-Western contributions, including from the Middle East and North Africa, providing a global perspective on the diverse pathways of futures studies [click here to read more].

Futures Studies is a scientific research field involving scholars and researchers across many disciplines. There are undergraduate and post graduate programs available in universities around the world. You will notice that we use the plural term “futures” and you may wonder why we use this and not the singular term: “future”?

The answer is that WFSF, since its inception, has encouraged and supported a pluralistic approach to futures studies. This pluralism is reflected in the diversity of the WFSF membership and the research it supports. The WFSF uses the plural term “futures” studies rather than the singular “future” studies to counter the notion of only one future, the latter having both conceptual limitations and political implications. This pluralisation of futures opens up the territory for envisioning and creating alternative and preferred futures. A major focus of futures studies for us at WFSF is how we envisage and develop desirable outcomes in the times ahead.

The differences between professional futurists with other types of analysts, advisors or consultants who comment on the future include:

1- They usually focus on longer-term horizons, i.e. at least the next 5 years, so that there is enough time and space for maneuvering to design new decisions and take appropriate action to influence the future.

2- Instead of only a specialized and limited area of expertise, they are generalists and look at the wider dimensions of changes and developments in the global macro environment including all components of society, technology, politics, environment and economy.

3- They care more about sensing and systemic recognition of the big forces and fundamental and macro trends as well as emerging weak signals than the scattered, fragmentated awareness of everyday events.

4- They identify hidden, less obvious and basic assumptions that indicate the possibility and impossibility of various future events.

5- Instead of relying only on the continuity and extrapolation of the current and observed trends, they pay attention to important and key uncertainties in the form of diverse and different scenarios, thus revealing their and others’ rigid mental models. Based on new realities that emerge, they combine or modify each other’s mental models.

6- Instead of strengthening the spirit of despair and surrendering to the future that is already known and determined in advance, they encourage people and organizations towards systematic and cooperative awareness and networking to achieve their ideals and realize their visions that indicate their desired future [click here to read more].

A Pluralistic Approach to Understanding Futures Studies

While it is commonly thought that futures studies is an attempt to predict the future based on extrapolation from present day trends, empirical/predictive futures is only one of at least five approaches to futures research that have been identified. Building on earlier models of Sohail Inayatullah (1990), Eleonora Masini (1993), Wendell Bell (1997), and Richard Slaughter (1999, 2003), and her own youth futures research (1997), Jennifer Gidley has developed a taxonomy of five traditions, or paradigmatic approaches, to futures studies (Gidley 2004, 2009, 2011, 2013).

“There are many ways that the development of the futures studies field could be characterised. One broad contextual approach is to identify five traditions currently operating within the field, each of which represents different epistemological, or even ideological, underpinnings:

The empirical-positivist tradition, which focuses on trend analysis and prediction, originated in the USA. It was supported by the formation of the World Future Society in the 1960s;

The critical-normative tradition originated in Europe and grew out of a critique of what was perceived as an overly empirical approach to futures in the USA. This led to the foundation of the World Futures Studies Federation in the early 1970s;

The cultural-interpretive tradition arose in large measure from the work of those WFSF members who sought to include non-Western cultures and to invoke a deeper consideration of civilisational and planetary futures;

The empowerment-activist, prospective, action research approach began in Europe in the nineties and has been taken up by some Australian researchers;

The integral/transdisciplinary futures approach is newly emerging and appears to have potential for authentic multiperspectival and planetary inclusion, providing it remains open.

These are not mutually exclusive approaches, nor should this contextualisation imply a linear developmental model. These are all suitable pathways to futures research and pedagogy depending on the context. Well-informed futures researchers and educators may utilise any or all of these traditions depending on their operational context.” (Gidley 2009).

In Global Knowledge Futures (2013) Gidley’s five-stranded futures typology begins with a single bifurcation between positivist and post-positivist. In this model, the critical, cultural, empowerment & integral approaches reflect the pluralism of the post-positivist turn.

References for Researching the Traditions of Futures Studies

  • Bell, W. (1997/2003). Foundations of Futures Studies I: History, Purposes, Knowledge. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
  • Bell, W. (1997/2004). Foundations of Futures Studies II: Values, Objectivity and the Good Society. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
  • Fergnani, A., Cooper, B., (2023). Metamodern futures: Prescriptions for metamodern foresight, Futures, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2023.103135
  • Galtung, J. (1982). Schooling, Education and the Future (Vol. 61). Malmo, Sweden: Department of Education and Psychology Research, Lund University.
  • Gidley, J., Bateman, D., & Smith, C. (2004). Futures in Education: Principles, Practice and Potential. Melbourne: Australian Foresight Institute.
  • Gidley, J. M., Fien, J., Smith, J-A., Thomsen, D. C., and Smith, T. F. (2009) Participatory Futures Methods: Towards Adaptability and Resilience in Climate-Vulnerable Communities, Environmental Policy and Governance, 19(6) pp. 427-440.
  • Gidley, J.M. (2013) Global Knowledge Futures: Articulating the Emergence of a new Meta-level Field Integral Review: A Transdisciplinary and Transcultural Journal for New Thought, Research and Praxis. 9(2) pp. 145-172.
  • Gidley, J.M. (2017) The Future: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press.
  • Hideg, É. (2015) Paradigms in the futures field. Corvinus University of Budapest.
  • Inayatullah, S. (1990) Deconstructing and reconstructing the future: Predictive, cultural and critical epistemologies. Futures, 22(2), 115-141.
  • Masini, E. (1993). Why Future Studies? London: Grey Seal.
  • Miller, Riel (2018) Transforming the Future: Anticipation in the 21st Century, London: Routledge. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/1494609?ln=en
  • Motti, V.V. (2022) Futures Studies. In: Glăveanu V.P. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of the Possible. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98390-5_269-1
  • Motti, Victor V., Glenn, J., Di Berardo, M. Pelton, J., Gardner, A., Mengel, T., Mureithi, L. (2023). Futures Studies: Contributions and Sources, Washington, D.C., Alternative Planetary Futures Institute (Ap-Fi).
  • Slaughter, R. (1999) Professional standards in futures work, Futures, 31.
  • Slaughter, R. (2003) Integral Futures – a New Model for Futures Enquiry and Practice. Melbourne: Australian Foresight Institute.
  • Slaughter, R. (2008) What difference does integral make? Futures, 40, 120-137.
  • Tapio, P. & Hietanen, O. (2002) Epistemology and public policy: using a new typology to analyse the paradigm shift in Finnish transport futures studies. Futures, 34, 597-620.