The future studies, also known as Futures Studies (whose correct translation should be future studies, keeping the plural of both), represent a discipline and a field of investigation that, methodically, exploits systemic thinking, imagination and creativity for the exploration and creation of different possible futures. The goal is develop and train thinking and anticipation skills per develop scenarios and analyze their impactsin order to cope with big and fast changes in good time social, technological, economic, political, cultural…
Jennifer Gidley, internationally renowned futurist, psychologist and former president of the World Futures Studies Federation, in her book “The Future: a very short introduction”, defines the future as «neither unique nor static, but multiple and evolving», photographing what, today, is the soul of Futures Studies and the underlying thought that distinguishes them.
Also Roberto Paura, Director of the Italian Institute For The Future, to whom we owe the Italian edition of Gidley’s text (2021), in an interesting interview – “Roberto Paura, the modern approach to Futures Studies” – in outlining the field of Future Studies refers to «most of the future» which, precisely because such, «they cannot be predicted deterministically, but anticipated».
According to this view, “the” future, therefore, does not exist.
There are “futures” (or “futurables”, as Bertrand de Jouvenel, one of the founders of this discipline, liked to call them), from which futurists try to grasp «the big trends, i.e. the so-called “megatrends”, the unknowns responsible for radical discontinuities, the emerging phenomena and the most probable scenarios» says Fear.
What are Futures Studies (or Future Studies)
The American Walter Warren Wagar, historian and scholar of Futures Studies, indicated in the last century the English writer Herbert George Wells as founder of Future Studies. Beyond this recognition, it is interesting to understand the motivation that guided him, because it contains the profound meaning of future studies.
Wells, in the book “Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress Upon Human Life and Thought: An Experiment in Prophecy”, published in 1901 in The Fortnightly Review, did something never attempted before: it anticipated what the world would be like in 2000, imagining socio-political, economic, technological and scientific changes.
Even, in “The World Set Free”, a work of 1914, came to anticipate the invention of the atomic bomb and about twenty years later to support the establishment of a “science of the future”, anticipating the start of modern academic studies on the subject by about forty years.
Anticipating change lies at the heart of Future Studies.
What characterizes this field of study is the systematic and interdisciplinary approach with which futurists, by identifying emerging and evolving trends in society, the economy, politics and the cultural fabric, develop anticipatory processes related to new ways of living, organizing businesses and working, which in turn will lead to alternative realities.
The aforementioned World Futures Studies Federation – an international non-profit organization and UNESCO partner, which brings together futurists from all over the world – since its inception in 1973 has made its the use of the plural, supporting the expression “Studies on the Future”, thus distancing itself from the theories of the past on the unique, predetermined and predictable future and by all those professional figures who, in various capacities, deal with the future without, however, anticipating it.
According to the WFSF, among the distinctive features of Futures Studies there is above all an anticipatory process with medium-long time horizonswhich is projected towards a period of time between five and ten years (and beyond) and which, rather than exploring changes limited to specific ambits and referred to certain areas, has a very broad look that embraces all the components of society, technology, politics, the environment and the economy on a global level.
Futures studies (also more commonly called by the name of the discipline “futurology”) are aimed at identifying both the “major forces”, the megatrends, the macro-phenomena capable of changing structures and all those signals that are not immediately perceptible and sometimes hidden (weak signals) which, however, can provide useful “suggestions” in the exploration of possible and alternative futures. And, just why in open opposition to an already known and determined future, future studies encourage people, organizations and companies to realize their future visions by arriving at desirable futures.
Desirable futures are also referred to by the futurist Sohail Inayatullah – UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies at Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia and professor at the Graduate Institute of Futures Studies of Tamkang University in Taipei, Taiwan – summarizing the transition, starting from the mid-1960s , that is, since Futures Studies began to establish itself as an academic discipline, «from an approach based on predicting the future, to mapping alternative futures and creating desired futures, both collectively and individually».
Over the decades – Inayatullah underlines in his text “Futures Studies: Theories and Methods” – the succession of events that have led to discontinuity and disruption of balances, such as economic crises, energy crises, wars and geopolitical tensions, has forced organizations to modify their strategies several times, to the point of inducing them to look at uncertainty as a change to be welcomed (and not rejected) and from which to start again to build alternative paths.
The impact of anticipating the future
For several decades now, in the context of Futures Studies / Studi di futuro – observes the Director of the Italian Institute For The Future, Roberto Paura – there have been think tanks that deal with consultancy on the subject of corporate foresight (or strategic foresight), i.e. business-oriented strategic foresight, the use of which is to help in making decisions based on the analysis of alternative future scenarios.
«Although they are not always aware of it, all organizations carry out forecasting studies internally. Just setting a strategy for next year is a foresight exerciseRoberto Paura points out.
However, with respect to these short-term forecasting activities, the strategic foresight method extends the time frame to build medium and long-term scenarios whose objective is anticipate those socio-economic transformations that require radical changes or anticipate the consequences of potential crises or understand which are the most vulnerable elements for one’s own organization (understood both as a private or public company, but also as a social, political, economic organization…), reaching the point of developing more robust long-term strategies.
What are the benefits of future studies? First of all, the organizations that have greater capacity for anticipation are those with greater long-term sustainability. And this because they develop a strong awareness of those trends and phenomena capable of having a positive or negative impact on the future of their own reality, as well as the predisposition towards possible corrective actions.
The proactive attitude is another conquest of anticipation of the future, because it is aimed at monitoring the horizons with the aim of identifying both opportunities and threats that could impact future activities, with the advantage of intervening in time.
Looking at companies, one of the cases most cited by futurists engaged in corporate foresight activities is that of the British multinational active in the oil sector – Shell – who, between the 1960s and the early 1970s, introduced the foresight method within the company to better understand the dynamics of its market, thus managing to anticipate, before other companies in the sector, the consequences of the energy crisis of 1973 and, therefore, to prepare to face them by making important decisions.
The habit of mapping the future and the habit of strategic planning aimed at directing the course of events towards the desired scenarios are able to change the way organizations operate (once again be they private or public companies or social, political organizations, etc.), guiding them towards a process of transformation deeper than the reactive response to events or to innovation based on the mere development of new products and services or new technologies.