Comparison of national foresight studies by integrated foresight management model

Abstract

National foresight studies have become a common tool in the last decade of the 20th century. Despite the fact that a lot of comparative studies have been carried out to compare these projects, none of them has been capturing all dimensions and elements of foresight since a comprehensive definition of foresight was missing. The integrated foresight management model is an attempt to provide an integrated and holistic view about the impact of foresight on the management of the future. In this article, a checklist is proposed based on the integrated foresight management model to compare eight national foresight studies. Based on the results, the discussion about “generations” of foresight is revisited and a new definition of “generations” is proposed. The conceptual framework which is the integrated foresight management model and the derived checklist can be developed in the future by expanding the amount of data available for analysis and the number of independent experts to make this comparison.