Foresight Transformation Missions
Foresight Transformation Missions are areas of global challenges that our parent organisation, School of International Futures, believes can be transformed using foresight. They are complex, difficult issues that if not addressed, will have serious consequences for people and the planet.
To solve these problems and transform our systems and sectors, we hope to create a network of people collaborating on projects and sharing resources, knowledge and skills. By working together towards a common goal, we can bring in new perspectives, come up with creative strategies and solutions, advocate for change, capture important insights and tell inspiring stories.
Find out more about each of the foresight transformation missions:
- A just transition is a way to think about organisational responses to our overlapping systemic challenges. These include climate change, biodiversity and energy crisis, intergenerational inequity, and shifting geopolitics. Organisations of all kinds from governments to businesses to NGOs face multiple strategic and policy challenges as a result, including managing complex legacy issues, legitimacy and social permission to operate. Some of the work on climate and energy futures, and just transitions are being led by the NGFP Climate Hub.Learn more
- Democracy and sustainable development share values but also have tensions. Democracies often prioritize short-term gains and individual freedoms, while sustainable development requires a long-term, collaborative approach. To create a just and sustainable future, we must reimagine democratic institutions and practices. In partnership with Foundation for Democracy & Sustainable Development (FDSD), we’re seeking projects exploring the intersection and tensions between democracy & sustainability, and the implications of them for current and future generations. We also accept projects exploring governance approaches that allow for sustainable development to happen, including policy frameworks and decision-making processes.Explore FDSD’s analysis
- There are three parts to our emerging technologies challenge: How can we realise the potential benefits of emerging technologies, focusing on questions of efficacy, distribution and access (including ownership and equity)? How can we better understand the risks arising from the speed of emerging technology innovation, and disconnects with e.g. anticipatory and governance capabilities? What are potential implications of emerging technologies in relation to socio-technical change – focusing on exploring the complex interactions between technology, nature, and society in various international contexts? One of NGFP’s emerging tech projects features network members from Africa exploring the future of data governance on the continent. Learn about NGFP’s African Digital Futures project
- Today, the dominant futures and foresight methods are largely located in non-Indigenous Global North frames. Because they represent only a small part of the global population, they do not necessarily centre the context and imaginations of various communities from around the world. At the same time, we are conscious that every community has its own ways of doing, seeing, thinking, imagining, and dreaming about what matters to them. We are seeking to celebrate and learn from a broader range of ways of doing futures and foresight work from everywhere in the globe, that can open new doors and bring new perspectives to the way we challenge the status quo, solve current issues, and envision new possibilities and pathways.Learn about our FMAW project
- Supporting decision makers to act in ways that are intergenerationally fair, ensuring decisions allow people of all ages to meet their needs in the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs in the future. This is done by building products, coalitions, capability and driving conversations that build awareness of intergenerationally unfair issues that matter to communities in a tangible and actionable way, ensuring citizens are engaged in ways that motivate action, accountability and give political voice to those most affected, providing the information, tools and skills necessary for leaders and policymakers to make fairer decisions and to support accountability and transparency and embedding incentives towards increased intergenerational fairness within communities, countries, regions and across global systems. Explore NGFP’s Intergenerational Fairness hub
- Future generations will be most impacted by the consequences of today’s geopolitically volatile world. We want to amplify the peacebuilding voice of emerging generations and enable younger voices to explore alternative peacebuilding models in their own contexts and beyond. We recognize conflicts are complex, comprising socio-economic, political and cultural factors, and often driven by a set of interwoven issues such as identity, resource scarcity or climate change. How can we strengthen the use of foresight as an impactful mechanism to convene dialogue, work towards preferred outcomes in a participatory manner, and drive institutional reform necessary for peacebuilding? We intend to work across the whole conflict cycle, linking closely with the humanitarian, security, and human rights sectors, with special focus on identity, conflict resolution, societal integration and cohesion. One of NGFP’s projects on this topic is the Peaceful Futures project.Find out more
- Imagining a world without nuclear weapons requires not only a radical rethinking of present models of security but also critical and creative explorations of governance paradigms that can effectively monitor and enforce a prohibition. In such a future, the global peace and security landscape might look and feel different in ways that require applying new lenses to legacy security and nuclear-specific challenges, illuminating sectoral and institutional biases, and overcoming siloed and reactive approaches to security in a world of intersectional risks and threats.