What Futures Thinking and Strategic Foresight methods can offer public servants

With the UN Summit of the Future fast approaching, ANZSOG’s Dr Anneke Schmider teams up with the University of Queensland’s Professor Brian Head and Dr Trish Lavery, from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s Long term Insights Briefing project, to overview contemporary methods for using futures and foresight methods for strategy and policy making. These techniques are highly valuable for practitioners who are dealing with complex or wicked problems and can be used to identify potential opportunities and challenges when developing policy and strategy. 

The UN Summit of the Future, scheduled for 21-24 September 2024, is an ambitious agenda that brings together global leaders to focus on how to ‘deliver a better present and safeguard the future’ in a global environment that has been described by the UN as using ‘outdated structures that no longer reflect today’s political and economic realities’. The Summit proposes the adoption of a Pact for the Future which will also incorporate a Global Digital Compact and a Declaration on Future Generations. 

These high-level activities at the UN may feel a bit distant from the realities faced by public governance practitioners on the ground but the UN has embedded futures-thinking throughout its own organisational culture via the inclusion of strategic foresight as one of its “quintet of cutting-edge skills”. In an effort to build a “UN system that can better support Member States in the years to come”, the inclusion of foresight in the quintet “signifies a commitment to long-term thinking, strategic planning, and readiness for a spectrum of possible futures”. 

There is little doubt that those working in public governance and decision-making are experiencing ever greater complexities and challenges, sometimes known as ‘wicked problems’ (Head 2022). Researchers and governments have recently recognised an urgent need for more adaptive and flexible approaches to better anticipate and manage not only current, but emerging and future crises.  

This involves thinking long-term rather than simply responding to immediate shocks and requires the exploration of additional methods for considering public governance and policy challenges and opportunities.  This paper focuses on futures thinking and strategic foresight methods.  

What are futures thinking and strategic foresight methods?

Futures thinking and strategic foresight might seem to be speculative methods which appear to be untested, or which seem to lack rigour. However, these methods have been available for some time and are being tested in diverse public governance settings.  

Internationally, UNESCO has been developing Futures Literacy approaches (https://www.unesco.org/en/futures-literacy) and has established many laboratories and Academic Chairs around the world. UNESCO has also published a freely available e-book on the topic (UNESCO 2018) along with other resources for practitioners.  

UNESCO proposes the use of Futures Literacy ‘labs’ that focus on phases of future thinking. These labs create an opportunity to think about the future in a structured way, considering probable and preferred futures; asking new questions about the present considering different future contexts; and connecting these questions to what needs to be done in the present. 

Source: UNESCO Futures literacy & foresight: using futures to prepare, plan, and innovate – UNESCO Digital Library 

Whilst futures thinking can take a very long view, strategic foresight is more practically focused on possibilities within medium- to longer-term time horizons beyond traditional 3-5 year strategic plans. The OECD has been using strategic foresight since early work in the 1960s and 1970s to explore scenarios of plausible futures for the economy and environment, societal change, development and international collaboration. In 2013, it established the Strategic Foresight Unit, embedded in the Office of the Secretary-General, to deepen and mainstream foresight across OECD policy areas. Currently, the OECD has been expanding upon this work, applying foresight to many areas of its mandate, and leading the charge to support strengthening foresight capacity in governments. The Government Foresight Community, a large group of public sector strategic foresight practitioners, meet to exchange information on the latest foresight developments in government for better policy making.  

What do futures and strategic foresight methods mean for practitioners?

Futures and strategic foresight methods could be used to identify potential opportunities and challenges when developing policy and strategy, when combined with traditional methods that capture contemporary knowledge and research, for example, comparative policy research such as that developed by the OECD, and stakeholder consultation.  

ANZSOG’s Sally Washington describes the combination of these methods as ‘hindsight, insight and foresight’ which constitute an important capability for governments, publishing a case study on the use of foresight methods in government jurisdictions. 

The Australian Government’s Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, in partnership with the Futures Hub at the National Security College in the Australian National University have recently launched their futures methodology primer. The primer draws on expertise from inside and outside government and was written by policy officers, for policy officers – with a focus on practical and tested approaches that can support the creation of policies that are fit for the future in diverse settings.  

The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet is applying foresight as part of the Long-term Insights Briefing initiative. The Long-term Insights Briefings were launched as part of the APS Reform Agenda in 2023 to strengthen policy development and planning. They provide government agencies with more opportunity to work with Australians on significant, complex and long-term issues and to support the government in delivering future-focused policies. 

The most recent Long-term Insights Briefing is on The Future of government services: Aligning work with Australian communities. It will explore how government services could be designed and delivered differently in the future. Foresight is a participatory exercise, and the Briefing will be informed by interviews, workshops and focus groups with community members, experts from across the Australian Public Service, academia, industry, think-tanks, policy institutes and community representative organisations. 

Conclusion

Thinking in new ways about policy problems—including approaches that consider the contemporary environment and possible future opportunities and challenges—may prove useful in considering todays ‘wicked problems’.  Well documented in policy processes, and grounded by contemporary evidence and knowledge, these methods may prove a useful part of the policy and program toolkit for practitioners. We include well developed resources below as a starting point for considering how these can be utilised more broadly.  

Further Reading

Brian Head (2022). Wicked Problems in Public Policy: Understanding and responding to Complex Challenges.   

Sally Washington (2023). Hindsight, Foresight and Insight: three lenses for better policy-making

Sally Washington (2022). Building foresight capability: helping governments take care of tomorrow today

Sally Washington (2022). Building foresight capability: a curated conversation between jurisdictions

OECD (2021). Foresight and Anticipatory Governance in Practice. Lessons in Effective Foresight Institutionalisation.  

UNESCO Futures literacy & foresight: using futures to prepare, plan, and innovate – UNESCO Digital Library  

UNESCO (2018) Transforming the Future: Anticipation in the 21st Century.