Futures Research Unpacked

Have you ever wondered why some of the world’s most established institutions, like major international banks, seem so surprised by the sudden arrival of new technology? Imagine a global financial giant that has survived centuries of change, only to find itself struggling to keep up with a two-year-old smartphone app. This isn't just about bad luck—it’s often a failure to look far enough ahead. In...

Imagine you’re a policy analyst asked to forecast the 'population' of a city twenty years from now. You run your regressions, check your trends, and deliver a report. But have you ever stopped to ask where the category of 'population' even came from? Or why we assume time is a linear resource to be managed? Often, what we call 'foresight' is really just a way of pinning the present onto the future...

Imagine being at the helm of a massive school district, responsible for the lives and learning of thousands of students, yet feeling like you are steering a ship designed two centuries ago. We often talk about teachers and principals as the faces of education reform, but what about the superintendents—the individuals with the most systemic power, yet whose roles as levers for social change often g...

Have you ever felt like no matter how many solar panels we install or climate treaties we sign, we are still just treating the symptoms of a much deeper malaise? We often treat sustainability as a technical or political puzzle, but what if the most significant barrier to a viable future isn't in our infrastructure, but in our interior world—our beliefs, values, and the stories we tell ourselves? I...

Have you ever felt like your organization is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic? You’re making incremental improvements, but the underlying system is clearly failing to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing world. This sense of "stuckness" is often the result of a gap between our desire for transformation and our practical ability to facilitate it. In this episode, we explore a powerf...

Imagine if we spent all our time worrying about whether a machine could write poetry like Shakespeare, while completely missing the fact that it was already rewriting the rules of global warfare or the entire world economy. In this episode, we dive into a landmark paper that argues our obsession with 'human-level intelligence' might be a massive category error. Instead of asking how smart AI is, w...

Have you ever wondered why we talk about computers 'learning' or 'thinking' as if they were alive? It turns out that our fascination—and fear—of intelligent machines isn't a modern phenomenon; it is a story thousands of years in the making. In this episode, we dive into a deep genealogical study that traces our relationship with artificial intelligence over a staggering 5,000-year timeline. Using...

Have you ever wondered why truly transformative ideas often struggle to survive the 'real world' of budgets and bureaucracy, while aging systems seem to cling to life long after they've stopped working? It’s a tension every leader and strategist feels: the pull between keeping the lights on today and preparing for a radically different tomorrow. In this episode, we dive into a foundational paper t...

Have you ever looked at a news headline and felt like you were only seeing the tip of the iceberg? We’re often told that the future is a matter of predicting trends, but what if the most powerful way to change the world is to look beneath the data at the myths and metaphors that hold our current reality in place? In this episode, we explore Sohail Inayatullah’s foundational work on a vertical rese...

Have you ever found yourself halfway through a difficult assignment, wondering if any of this actually matters for your future? It’s a common struggle, but what if the simple act of how you imagine that future is the deciding factor in whether you succeed or burn out? In this episode, we dive into a landmark systematic review that explores the cognitive bridge between today’s effort and tomorrow’s...

Imagine standing before a board of senior executives in 1968 and suggesting that their rigid five-year plan is fundamentally flawed because it ignores global uncertainty. In response, you are met with a "deathly silence" and a stern order from the top never to attempt such changes again [1, 2]. This isn't just a hypothetical scenario; it's the opening act of a transformation that eventually turned...

Imagine you’re trying to fix a plane while it's still in the air. You need the mechanics to keep it flying, but you also need the designers working on the next generation of carbon-neutral aircraft, and the entrepreneurs figuring out how to fund the transition. Usually, these groups just argue—but what if they had a shared language to turn that conflict into a roadmap for systemic change? This epi...

Have you ever felt like a well-intentioned project was doing great work, only to realize later it was just helping the old system run a bit more efficiently? It’s a common frustration in futures work: we aim for a revolution but end up with an upgrade. This tension is at the heart of today’s deep dive, which moves beyond the theoretical 'what' of system change to the practical 'how' of navigating...

Have you ever considered that the very way you speak might be preventing you from imagining a different world? [1, 2] In East Asian languages, the lack of a simple plural suffix means that discussions about "the future" almost always default to a single, unavoidable destination. [3, 4] This research investigates how linguistic structures in Korea, Japan, and China create a "futures gap," leaving t...

Have you ever wondered if "predicting the future" can actually be taught in a classroom, or if every futurist is just making it up as they go? For an emerging discipline, the lack of a standardized curriculum can often feel like a barrier to professional legitimacy. This episode explores the efforts of the University Foresight Network to uncover the shared foundations beneath diverse academic appr...

Imagine if the future wasn't just something that happened to us, but a muscle we could collectively flex. For many of us, 'the future' feels like a vague abstraction or a blank space that we only worry about when a crisis hits. But what if we could transform that uncertainty into a robust social capacity, as fundamental to our civilization as law or education? In this episode, we dive into Richard...

Ever felt like the latest "must-have" AI tool is moving faster than our ability to understand what it's actually doing to us? It seems every week brings a new breakthrough that promises to revolutionize our lives, yet we rarely stop to ask whose interests these technologies truly serve and what we might be losing in the process. In this episode, we explore a critical assessment of the "technoscien...

Have you ever wandered through the neon-drenched alleys of a cyberpunk metropolis or the floating spires of a utopian dreamscape and wondered what these places say about our own world? While we often treat fictional cities as mere backdrops for drama, they are frequently sophisticated laboratory spaces for testing urban theories and social ideologies [1, 2]. In this episode, we unpack a systematic...

As we face a global "polycrisis," we’re realizing that our biggest hurdle isn't a lack of ideas, but the fact that our experts are all speaking different languages when it comes to the future. In this episode • The "unmanageable mess" of theory: Why the explosion of different ways to study the future has created a site of difference that makes it nearly impossible for researchers to agree (Lundber...

Welcome to an episode where we explore Haya Al-Noaimi's compelling article, 'Feminist Futures as Unthought Futures,' published in the Journal of Futures Studies. This discussion critically examines the tension between dominant neoliberal future visions in the Gulf states and the urgent need for feminist, human-centered approaches through education. In this episode, we'll delve into: • Al-Noaimi's...

Welcome to a episode where we explore Nur Anisah Abdullah's groundbreaking research paper, 'Feminizing Futures,' published in the Journal of Futures Studies. This essential work dives deep into how contemporary futurists define and integrate feminism into their professional practice. In this discussion, we'll uncover: • The diverse perspectives of eleven futurists on what feminism means to them an...

"Dive into the Futures Telescope, an innovative framework for futures thinking that challenges traditional linear views of the future. This podcast explores how the Futures Telescope moves beyond static predictions by merging structured foresight with subjective perspectives. Discover how this dynamic tool, built on complexity theory, helps practitioners explore multiple futures by actively adjust...

Welcome to Futures Research Unpacked! This episode dives into the crucial, yet often overlooked, role of domain mapping within strategic foresight. We unpack a unique research paper that empirically evaluates domain mapping's utility by analyzing years of exercises with Canadian public servants. Discover how domain mapping serves as a prerequisite for robust foresight, helping to conceptually fram...

Join us for an insightful discussion on "Collective Sensemaking and Reframing in Futures Thinking Engagements: Lessons From a Responsible Futuring Learning Trajectory". This episode delves into how the Responsible Futuringapproach, a design-oriented method, facilitates collective sensemaking and reframing to foster futures thinking. We'll explore the paper's findings from a 4-day learning trajecto...

Join us for an insightful discussion as we unpack the research paper "Avoiding Nightmare Forests: Insights From a Co‐Creative Workshop". This episode explores the critical challenges facing Nordic forests, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and the balance required for a sustainable forest-based bioeconomy. We delve into a unique methodology: a co-creative workshop using a backcasting ap...