Futures studies

Futures studies, futures research or futurology is the systematic, interdisciplinary and holistic study of social and technological advancement, and other environmental trends, often for the purpose of exploring how people will live and work in the future. Predictive techniques, such as forecasting, can be applied, but contemporary futures studies scholars emphasize the importance of systematically exploring alternatives. In general, it can be considered as a branch of the social sciences and an extension to the field of history. Futures studies seeks to understand what is likely to continue and what could plausibly change. Part of the discipline thus seeks a systematic and pattern-based understanding of past and present, and to explore the possibility of future events and trends.
Unlike the physical sciences where a narrower, more specified system is studied, futurology concerns a much bigger and more complex world system. The methodology and knowledge are much less proven than in natural science and social sciences like sociology and economics. There is a debate as to whether this discipline is an art or science, and it is sometimes described as pseudoscience; nevertheless, the Association of Professional Futurists was formed in 2002, developing a Foresight Competency Model in 2017, and it is now possible to study it academically, for example at the FU Berlin in their master's course. To encourage inclusive and cross-disciplinary discussions about futures studies, UNESCO declared December 2 as World Futures Day.

Overview

Futurology is an interdisciplinary field that aggregates and analyzes trends, with both lay and professional methods, to compose possible futures. It includes analyzing the sources, patterns, and causes of change and stability in an attempt to develop foresight. Around the world the field is variously referred to as futures studies, futures research, 'strategic foresight, futuristics, futures thinking, futuring, and futurology. Futures studies and strategic foresight are the academic field's most commonly used terms in the English-speaking world.
Foresight' was the original term and was first used in this sense by H. G. Wells in 1932. "Futurology" is a term common in encyclopedias, though it is used almost exclusively by nonpractitioners today, at least in the English-speaking world. "Futurology" is defined as the "study of the future". The term was coined by German professor Ossip K. Flechtheim in the mid-1940s, who proposed it as a new branch of knowledge that would include a new science of probability. This term has fallen from favor in recent decades because modern practitioners stress the importance of alternative, plausible, preferable and plural futures, rather than one monolithic future, and the limitations of prediction and probability, versus the creation of possible and preferable futures.
Three factors usually distinguish futures studies from the research conducted by other disciplines. First, futures studies often examines trends to compose possible, probable, and preferable futures along with the role "wild cards" can play on future scenarios. Second, futures studies typically attempts to gain a holistic or systemic view based on insights from a range of different disciplines, generally focusing on the STEEP categories of Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental and Political. Third, futures studies challenges and unpacks the assumptions behind dominant and contending views of the future. The future thus is not empty but fraught with hidden assumptions. For example, many people expect the collapse of the Earth's ecosystem in the near future, while others believe the current ecosystem will survive indefinitely. A foresight approach would seek to analyze and highlight the assumptions underpinning such views.
As a field, futures studies expands on the research component, by emphasizing the communication of a strategy and the actionable steps needed to implement the plan or plans leading to the preferable future. It is in this regard, that futures studies evolves from an academic exercise to a more traditional business-like practice, looking to better prepare organizations for the future.
Futures studies does not generally focus on short term predictions such as interest rates over the next business cycle, or of managers or investors with short-term time horizons. Most strategic planning, which develops goals and objectives with time horizons of one to three years, is also not considered futures. Plans and strategies with longer time horizons that specifically attempt to anticipate possible future events are definitely part of the field. Learning about medium and long-term developments may at times be observed from their early signs. As a rule, futures studies is generally concerned with changes of transformative impact, rather than those of an incremental or narrow scope.
The futures field also excludes those who make future predictions through professed supernatural means.
To complete a futures study, a domain is selected for examination. The domain is the main idea of the project, or what the outcome of the project seeks to determine. Domains can have a strategic or exploratory focus and must narrow down the scope of the research. It examines what will, and more importantly, will not be discussed in the research.
Futures practitioners study trends focusing on STEEP baselines. Baseline exploration examine current STEEP environments to determine normal trends, called baselines. Next, practitioners use scenarios to explore different futures outcomes. Scenarios examine how the future can be different.
1. Collapse Scenarios seek to answer: What happens if the STEEP baselines fall into ruin and no longer exist? How will that impact STEEP categories?
2. Transformation Scenarios: explore futures with the baseline of society transiting to a "new" state. How are the STEEP categories effected if society has a whole new structure?
3. New Equilibrium: examines an entire change to the structure of the domain. What happens if the baseline changes to a "new" baseline within the same structure of society?

History

Origins

and Sohail Inayatullah argue that the search for grand patterns goes all the way back to Sima Qian and Ibn Khaldun. Early western examples include Sir Thomas More's Utopia in which a future society has overcome poverty and misery.
Advances in mathematics in the 17th century prompted attempts to calculate statistical and probabilistic concepts. Objectivity became linked to knowledge that could be expressed in numerical data. In 18th century Britain, investors established mathematical formulas to assess the future value of an asset. In 1758 the French economist François Quesnay proceeded to establish a quantitative model of the entire economy, known as the Tableau Economique, so that future production could be planned. Meanwhile, Anne Robert Jacques Turgot first articulated the law of diminishing returns. In 1793 the Chinese bureaucrat Hong Liangji forecasted future population growth.
The Industrial Revolution was on the verge of spreading across the European continent, when in 1798 Thomas Malthus published An essay on the principle of Population as it affects the Future Improvement of Society. Malthus questioned optimistic utopias and theories of progress. Malthus' fear about the survival of the human race is regarded as an early European dystopia. Starting in the 1830s, Auguste Comte developed theories of social evolution and claimed that metapatterns could be discerned in social change. In the 1870s Herbert Spencer blended Compte's theories with Charles Darwin's biological evolution theory. Social Darwinism became popular in Europe and the USA. By the late 19th century, the belief in human progress and the triumph of scientific invention prevailed and science fiction became a popular future narrative. In 1888 William Morris published News from Nowhere, in which he theorized about how working time could be reduced.

Early 20th century

The British H. G. Wells established the genre of "true science fiction" at the turn of the century. Well's works were supposedly based on sound scientific knowledge. Wells became a forerunner of social and technological forecasting. A series of techno-optimistic newspaper articles and books were published between 1890 and 1914 in the US and Europe. After World War I the Italian Futurism movement led by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti glorified modernity. Soviet futurists, such as Vladimir Mayakovsky, David Burliuk, and Vasily Kamensky struggled against official communist cultural policy throughout the 20th century. In Japan, futurists gained traction after World War I by denouncing the Meiji era and glorifying speed and technological progress.
With the end of World War I interest in statistical forecasting intensified. In statistics, a forecast is a calculation of a future event's magnitude or probability. Forecasting calculates the future, while an estimate attempts to establish the value of an existing quantity. In the United States, President Hoover established a Research Committee on Social Trends in 1929 headed by William F. Ogburn. Past statistics were used to chart trends and project those trends into the future. Planning became part of the political decision-making process after World War II as capitalist and communist governments across the globe produced predictive forecasts. The RAND Corporation was founded in 1945 to assist the US military with post-war planning. The long-term planning of military and industrial Cold War efforts peaked in the 1960s when peace research emerged as a counter-movement and the positivist idea of "the one predictable future" was called into question.

1960s futures research

In 1954 Robert Jungk published a critique of the US and the supposed colonization of the future in Tomorrow is already Here. Fred L. Polak published Images of the Future in 1961, it has become a classic text on imagining alternative futures. In the 1960s, human-centered methods of future studies were developed in Europe by Bertrand de Jouvenel and Johan Galtung. The positivist idea of a single future was challenged by scientists such as Thomas Kuhn, Karl Popper, and Jürgen Habermas. Future studies established itself as an academic field when social scientists began to question positivism as a plausible theory of knowledge and instead turned to pluralism. At the 1967 First international Future Research Conference" in Oslo research on urban sprawl, hunger, and education was presented. In 1968 Olaf Helmer of the RAND Corporation conceded "One begins to realize that there is a wealth of possible futures and that these possibilities can be shaped in different ways". Future studies worked on the basis that a multitude of possible futures could be estimated, forecast, and manipulated.
Futures studies was developed as an empirical research field. Inspired by Herman Kahn's publications, future studies employed techniques such as scenario planning, game theory, and computer simulations. Historians, political scientists and sociologists who engaged in critical futures studies, such as Ossip K. Flechtheim, and Johan Galtung, laid the foundations of peace and conflict studies as an academic discipline.
The international academic dialogue on futures studies became institutionalized in the form of the World Futures Studies Federation, founded in 1967. The first doctoral program on the Study of the Future, was founded in 1969 at the University of Massachusetts by Christopher Dede and Billy Rojas. Dede also founded a master's degree program in 1975 at the University of Houston–Clear Lake. In 1976, the M.A. Program in Public Policy in Alternative Futures at the University of Hawaii at Manoa was established.