Abstract
This article identifies major challenges to the utility and use of foresight by policymakers and decision-makers and suggests ways forward to overcome them. The key elements thus underlined could then be used as benchmarks to constructively estimate the relevance of specific foresight efforts to policymaking.
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Notes
This article is grounded in confidential practice, exchanges, interviews, research and resulting commissioned studies done within the context of the Global Futures Forum (a multinational partnership of intelligence and security organizations at unclassified level) and in the course of the last nine years as advisor, notably for governmental and international governmental organizations.
This definition was created using the understanding, knowledge and experience of highly regarded professional: Fingar (2009a, 2009b); Davis (2007) (https://www.cia.gov/library/kent-center-occasional-papers/vol2no1.htm, accessed 28 May 2014), Knight (2009) (http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Public_Sector/Management/Focused_on_foresight_An_interview_with_the_US_national_intelligence_officer_for_warning_2415, accessed 28 May 2014); Grabo (2004).
This categorization is one among many that can be explored in (Glenn, 2010); (http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/FRM-V3.html, accessed 28 May 2014.)
The process and a step-by-step methodology of strategic foresight and warning analysis (Lavoix 2011b; 2012) can be found at: https://www.redanalysis.org/category/how-to-foresee-and-warn/basics/process-and-concept/visualising-the-steps-of-the-process/, accessed 28 May 2014 and https://www.redanalysis.org/2011/11/28/sfw-analysis, accessed 28 May 2014.
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Identifies major challenges to the utility and use of foresight by policy makers and decision-makers and suggests ways forward to overcome them
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Lavoix, H. Ensuring a Closer Fit: Insights on making foresight relevant to policymaking. Development 56, 464–469 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/dev.2014.27
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/dev.2014.27