Foresight 3.0

methods, tools and applications for the ‘collective forward intelligence’

The issue theme was explored with a workshop / keynote in May 2025 at the conference on the same theme, ‘Future-Oriented Collective Intelligence’ – https://www.futures4europe.eu/post/eye-of-europe-conference-foresight-and-ri-wjyxd   – for details see the Co-Futuring program. 

The special issue is now published on Foresight Vol. 27, 2025.  Papers include: 

CONTEXT

In this turbulent 21^st century the scope of foresight has come to address existential ‘grand challenges’, such as climate change, mass extinction, digital surveillance and post-truth fragmentation.  The scope of possible transformation is also moving rapidly, with new paradigms for governance, economic systems, and knowledge co-production among others. 

This is an opportunity for the practice and theory of ‘looking ahead’, to move towards a next generation ‘Foresight 3.0’ – ‘from transition to transformation’.  This is a foresight process based on a ‘collective forward intelligence’:  the mutual learning, co-innovation and co-production, between a wider stakeholder community, with deeper layers of value & meaning, and further horizons of transformation. This is a twin track agenda – 

• – internally, for the ‘collective forward intelligence’ within the foresight team and program (the ‘means’):
• – externally, for the foresight users and society around, where the ‘collective forward intelligence’ is the key to the transformations ahead (‘the ends’).  

In this spirit we invited contributions from practitioners and analysts for the ‘Foresight 3.0’ special issue of Foresight – the journal of future studies and strategic thinking. Each paper was based on (a) practical methods and tools, and/or (b), fundamental concepts in the Foresight 3.0 approach. Each paper covered applications from the ‘STEEP’ range (social, technological, economic, environmental, political, cultural).  For example, there are topical new agendas where a Foresight-3.0 type approach can be an enabler of decolonization processes (Karuri-Sebina, Miller & Feukeu 2022): new concepts of civic society influencing the human agenda (Chaudhary, Tariq, Iftikhar & Khurshid 2022…): new forms of social innovation (Amanatidou and Gritzas, 2020; Amanatidou, et al. 2018): or low-carbon transitions (Ravetz et al 2020).

Essential features for each paper included one or more of the following

• – Practical applications, methods and tools based on the Foresight 3.0 approach and the ‘collective forward intelligence’
• – Fundamental concepts in the Foresight 3.0 approach and the ‘collective forward intelligence’;

Papers then explored these ideas in a wide range of applications:

• Social: health & pandemics, place-making, social innovation:
• Technology: smart / AI systems, circular economies;
• Environmental: climate adaptation, net-zero transitions, risk & resilience, eco-innovation ;
• Economic: collaborative / transformative business models, financial systems, economic paradigms:
• Policy: collaborative / transformative governance, road-mapping, participation, conflict resolution;
• Cultural: post-truth, decolonization, emancipation, spiritual development;
• Urban & territorial: city /region foresight, visioning & transformation.

Overall, this special issue aims to demonstrate and put on the map new propositions and applications of Foresight 3.0 thinking: to advance the theory and analysis of ‘collective forward intelligence’: and to set out new directions for research and practice.  If projects on decolonization or social innovation around the world can gain insight and validation, and translate their visions into practice, then the Foresight 3.0 agenda will run and run.

Updates / events & other info on the Fore-wise theme

Special Issue Co-editors:

• Joe Ravetz, Leader Future Cities, Manchester Urban Institute, UK
• Geci Karuri-Sebina, Associate Professor, University of Witwatersrand School of Governance, South Africa
• Puruesh Chaudhary, Founder President, Agahi Foundation, Pakistan
• Effie Amanatidou, Hon. Senior Research Fellow, University of Manchester, Institute of Innovation Research

SOURCES:

Amanatidou, E., Gagliardi, D., Cox, D., 2018. Social Engagement: towards a typology of social innovation. Manchester Institute of Innovation Research Working Paper Series No. 82. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.28787.84002 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323809176_Social_engagement_Towards_a_typology_of_social_innovation_MIOIR_MBS_Working_Paper_Series-Working_Paper_82

Amanatidou, E., Gritzas G., (2020) Innovation for social needs in De Saille, S., Medvecky, F., van Oudheusden, M., Albertson, K., Amanatidou, E., Birabi, T., Pansera M. ‘Responsibility beyond Growth: A Case for Responsible Stagnation’. Bristol University Press. ISBN 978-1529208177

Chaudhary P, Tariq, Iftikhar & Khurshiid (2022) Is the Technological Singularity Scenario Possible: Can AI Parallel and Surpass All Human Mental Capabilities https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02604027.2022.2050879…

Karuri-Sebina, G, Miller, R, & Feukeu, E, (Forthcoming, 2023). … Reconceptualising Foresight and its Impact: Experiences in Decolonising Futures from the global South, Special Issue, foresight journal, Emerald: https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/fs/upcoming-2023-special-issue-re-conceptualising-foresight-and-its-impact-experiences

Kevin Albertson, Stevienna de Saille, Poonam Pandey, Effie Amanatidou, Keren Naa Abeka Arthur, Michiel Van Oudheusden & Fabien Medvecky (2021) “An RRI for the present moment: relational and ‘well-up’ innovation”, Journal of Responsible Innovation, DOI: 10.1080/23299460.2021.1961066

Ravetz, J, & Miles, I.D, (2016) Foresight in cities: on the possibility of a “strategic urban intelligence”, Foresight, Vol.18(5), pp469-490, http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/FS-06-2015-0037