Ethos Issue 7, Jan 2010

Opinion: Mainstreaming the Praxis of Foresight:
The UK Example
Calvin Chong and Jeremy Tan

The UK Government’s approach to futures thinking emphasises communication, engagement and broad application.

Foresight is not prediction; it is a natural human faculty used in everyday decision-making. It involves understanding how past and current events can inform decisions taken in the present, to reach desired outcomes in the future.

At the organisational level, foresight is more than simply a long-term work plan. It involves the gathering and synthesising of a variety of individual assessments to make strategic decisions that create the best possible outcomes for all stakeholders, across multiple domains and time frames.

Foresight has to be practised; to this end, governments and private organisations have embarked on widespread foresight programmes and activities varying in breadth, depth and sophistication (see Table 1).

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The UK Foresight Programme, with its stated role "to help government think systematically about the future", is an example of an established approach to the praxis of foresight in the public sector.¹ Observation of the UK Programme reveals four useful insights:

1. BUILD A ROBUST ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK
Foresight activities have to be aligned towards clear strategic anticipatory goals. This orientation can be towards downstream activities or specific to a narrow time frame—this was the case with the UK Civil Contingencies Secretariat’s (CCS) risk register, which assesses the most significant emergencies the country will face over the next five years.² The CCS uses the document as a basis for monitoring partner agencies’ risk mitigation efforts, and as part of its efforts in public education and outreach.

Foresight work can also be oriented upstream towards more open-ended parameters with a longer time frame, as evinced by the UK’s Sigma Scan, which collates future issues and trends for the next 20 to 80 years as identified by various horizon scanning sources.³ The UK Horizon Scanning Centre uses the material in case studies, workshops and programmes to work towards better strategic planning and policy-making.

Regardless of the strategic anticipatory orientation chosen, the methodologies employed need to be robust and credible. The UK emphasises an evidence-based approach that anchors foresight work on quality research and sources, clear and quantifiable indicators, and empirical data. The UK Government, by engaging a lead expert group for each project and allowing the public online access to their material, helps to ensure that their foresight work holds up to the analytical scrutiny of a wider community of experts and non-experts alike.

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