Foresight (future studies, futures thinking, anticipation)

Knowledge or insight gained by studying future possibilities, often the basis for policy. Foresight involves taking a longer and broader view of decision‐making. Foresight is used to provide early warning of emerging issues, understand challenges and opportunities, clarify vision and goals, and check the appropriateness and “robustness” of strategies. Foresight enables organizations, agencies, and communities to more wisely create their futures. Foresight is essentially about the future – places for which there are no facts (it has not occurred yet). Key approaches to foresight include monitoring trends, developing forecasts and scenarios, checking assumptions, and mental maps. Slaughter defines it as follows: “A broad term covering all methods of envisaging the future, but with an emphasis on the alternative futures concept. Most writers on foresight - those who do foresighting - consider it to include some element of action or decision, so forecasting alone is not enough to qualify as foresight, though it is a part of it.”