Foresight Transformation Missions
In the past six years, we have identified seven global challenges that need urgent attention. 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.
In line with this, the 2024 Fellowship will continue to include seven thematic categories that are part of a wider programme of work within SOIF’s Foresight Transformation Missions. They are: Climate & Just Transitions, Democracy & Governance, Emerging Technology, Futures Methods from Around the World, Intergenerational Fairness, Nuclear Security, and Peacebuilding.
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Building the capabilities, institutions and policy processes for a 21st century anticipatory governance that reflects the interests of future generations.
- 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.
- 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?