Deepening futures methods to face the civilisational crisis

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Richard Slaughter has argued for many years that we face a ‘civilisational crisis’, particularly in the context of climate change and the environment. Slaughter felt that traditional futures methods were too superficial and lacking in depth to address the civilisational challenge ahead of us. He provided frameworks and concepts to deepen futures methods and strategies and to build social foresight capacity. His significant practical contribution was the establishment of the Australian Foresight Institute and postgraduate studies at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. It is suggested that the foresight field in Australia needs to reestablish supportive structures such as these and take steps to obtain social and professional legitimation in order to promote an advanced futures discourse to take us toward better futures.