International best practices in foresight

The meeting featured inspiring contributions on leading approaches.

Dexter Docherty (OECD) and Bryonie Guthrie (WEF) demonstrated how artificial intelligence can be applied in strategic foresight. Their presentation was based on the white paper «AI in Strategic Foresight». Participants also gained valuable insights into the World Economic Forum’s Transformation Maps tool. This tool systematically maps key forces of transformation (e.g. climate change or artificial intelligence) and lists related topics, relevant stakeholders, and knowledge resources. The discussion revealed that artificial intelligence is already capable of achieving remarkable results, supporting the identification of blind spots and facilitating the linking of topics and effective communication.

Sylvia Veenhoff of the German Environment Agency provided insights into the agency’s horizon scanning process, which helps identify relevant developments in a complex and rapidly changing world. A structured procedure is used to progressively refine and prioritise topics. Horizon scanning is one of several foresight methods employed by the agency to inform anticipatory research and policymaking.

Niklas Gudowsky-Blatakes (Austrian Academy of Sciences) presented the monitoring process developed for the Austrian Parliament, which produces an impressive trend report twice a year. Using meta-scanning (a review of existing scans) and automated monitoring, six new socio-technical topics are developed for each edition in an efficient and focused process. The Austrian Academy of Sciences collaborates closely with the Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA) and the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).

Insights gained from this collaboration, together with subsequent in-depth discussions of three concrete and promising methodological approaches, will shape the project's ongoing development.