Preferred Future Research Articles

“It feels like a parallel universe.” Worldbuilding through climate action

ABSTRACT This study set out to explore the everyday experiences of people engaged in climate action. We focus not on one specific self-defined and bounded social movement, but on individuals engaging in different forms of climate action from protest and direct action to art and social media activism. Data were drawn from focus groups and interviews with 26 UK-based climate actors to explore motivations, experiences, emotions, conflicts and successes. Participants included scientists, artists, civil servants, community organisers, media, school students and teachers. Different ways of doing and experiencing climate action were found. Drawing on literature from science fiction and game studies, we argue that these different approaches to climate action can be conceptualised as worldbuilding. Climate action as worldbuilding consists of three key features: intentionality, separation and creating new norms. We conclude that worldbuilding is an inclusive conceptualisation as it makes space for different approaches to climate action, and allows for tensions within and between climate action movements to be viewed as a resource for learning, imagining and bringing into being preferred futures together. The study demonstrates how social movement research in the context of game design can contribute to the theorisation of activism through the production of a cultural artefact.

Critical design futures thinking and GenerativeAI: a Foresight 3.0 approach in higher education to design preferred futures for the industry

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine how integrating Foresight 3.0 (FS3.0) and the Critical Design Futures (CDF) framework into higher education can enhance students’ capacity to design preferred futures for the hospitality industry. Specifically, this study hypothesises that (H1) participation in a Digital Media Production module, underpinned by the CDF framework, bolsters students’ capabilities in designing innovative solutions for future‐oriented challenges in a Future of Hospitality-themed project. Additionally, (H2) the strategic integration of Generative AI (GenAI) tools with critical, design, and futures thinking skills within the CDF framework enhances students’ intellectual agility through iterative and dialogic interactions with GenAI tools. The methodology includes online surveys, multimodal and thematic qualitative analyses of students’ digital prototypes and reflections to study the effectiveness of FS3.0 and the CDF framework in cultivating future-ready graduates. Design/methodology/approach This study aims to explore the adoption of innovative tools and methodologies that anticipate future challenges while promoting proactive, solution‐oriented learning within higher education. The research investigates the integration of FS3.0 with the newly developed CDF framework within a Digital Media Production module tailored for the hospitality industry. FS3.0, by merging foresight with collective intelligence, fosters a collaborative, forward‐thinking educational paradigm that enhances students’ capacity to address complex, systemic, real‐world challenges. In this context, students engage in hands‐on activities, participating in intellectual sparring with GenAI tools–prompting, critiquing, and refining AI‐generated outputs–guided by the CDF framework. This approach aims to develop students’ creative confidence, critical competence, and futures flexibility (Patel et al., 2024). Findings Preliminary findings suggest that integrating FS3.0 and the CDF framework elevates students’ abilities to ideate and innovate effectively, particularly in developing solutions for industry‐specific challenges in the hospitality sector. The iterative, collaborative interaction with GenAI tools appears to enhance students’ intellectual agility, enabling them to flex their problem‐solving and creative thinking skills. Consequently, the study recommends establishing a collaborative learning space involving students, instructors, and industry stakeholders to continuously redesign innovation‐related modules based on the principles of collective intelligence and interdisciplinarity. Additionally, this study proposes a broader implementation of the FS3.0 and CDF approach across various educational disciplines to nurture innovative, forward‐thinking graduates who can navigate and innovate in complex environments. Originality/value This study contributes to higher education by demonstrating the value of integrating Foresight 3.0 and the Critical Design Futures (CDF) framework to equip students for an increasingly uncertain and complex world. The adoption of such innovative tools and methodologies enables students to anticipate and navigate future challenges effectively. Incorporating FS3.0 into educational curricula fosters a holistic perspective among students, encouraging them to think beyond present conditions and consider broader social, economic, and environmental contexts. This approach not only enhances students’ problem‐solving skills but also strengthens their resilience in facing multifaceted, real‐world challenges.

Anticipating the near future of teaching

The ways in which digital and networked higher education futures are imagined are rarely built around the values of universities, students and staff. Too often they are projected according to the values of ‘ed-tech’ industry and aligned policy discourses in which technological determinism, the interests of profit and the instrumentalisation of higher education are taken for granted as the inevitable drivers of change. This paper describes a methodology designed to enable universities to define and ‘own’ their own digital future, and to base it in the values of their communities. Such future visioning can be used as the basis for institutional strategy and planning, enabling us to advocate for resource and institutional policy change from a collectively-defined position. Equally importantly, it can be used to push back on other kinds of ‘inevitable’ futures described for us by agencies whose values are radically different. The paper describes the methods developed at the University of Edinburgh to achieve this future vision. It details the process we devised for defining a set of shared values and how we defined a preferred future for our own university. For the future of digital and networked education to be one that works in the interests of faculty and students, we argue that universities need to develop new, creative and values-based ways to envision and build it.

Establishing a Strategic Foresight Learning and Action Network (SF-LAN) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

This article chronicles the experiences and lessons learned in establishing strategic foresight (SF) in a U.S. government organization. This has value to the field of foresight, which is seeking to establish foresight in organizations as an intentional capability to explore alternative futures and work towards preferred futures. This work also has particular value to other federal agencies establishing or considering establishing a SF practice.

Investigating the fundamental levels of a signature pedagogy in nursing education: A scoping review

BackgroundA signature pedagogy is a unique approach that provides a blueprint for curricular decision-making, as it reflects how we teach (surface structures), why we teach (deep structures), and what we believe are vital concepts or values all learners should embody (implicit structures). ObjectiveTo investigate what is known from the existing literature about a signature pedagogy to support undergraduate nursing education. DesignThis scoping review adopted Arksey and O’Malley's framework to guide the analysis of data. Two electronic databases were used to explore studies on educational strategies, content, and values published in Arabic, English, Filipino, French, Portuguese, and Spanish between 1972 and 2022. ResultsA total of 258 articles were included in this review. The analysis revealed that the majority of articles were at the surface (n = 189), followed by the deep (n = 123), with the least number examining the implicit level (n = 90) associated with signature pedagogy levels. Results reflect a limited focus on implicit level; the core concepts and values that all learners should understand and grasp for their future practice to construct their professional identity and engage in healthcare transformation. ConclusionsThe findings from this scoping review, should not be an isolated movement within nursing education. The first step is to engage in discourse amongst all stakeholders, educational and healthcare nurse leaders, regarding the state of the profession. As a profession we need to understand what is the preferred future of nursing and what are the necessary educational processes to ensure the profession is actualizing their mandate. A call to action to develop a unique signature pedagogy should provide synergy between education and practice to enhance learner's competencies as a future professional.

Nursing 2023: A New Emphasis on Nursing Strategy.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been blamed for multiple health system problems. Many of the current issues, including staffing shortages, while exacerbated by the epidemic, have plagued us for decades. Various reactionary solutions to nursing shortages have been implemented during periods of crises, only to be abandoned when shortages have become less acute. Root causes for the resulting chronic shortages of nursing care team members have not been widely addressed. Nurse leaders have a responsibility to current and future patients, communities, and caregivers to mitigate these while implementing solutions to the current acute crisis in staffing. This requires an organization's nursing enterprise to define a vision for a preferred future, a strategic plan, and specific tactics to address the current crisis while ensuring sustainability of solutions. This article shares a high-level example from one of the country's largest health care systems.

Futuring for Leaders.

Optimism is a powerful mindset for leaders and teams, but promoting optimism during extended periods of extreme change and instability is challenging. Futures Thinking is a unique and inherently optimistic set of tools and processes that leaders can use in such times. Looking 10 or more years into the future allows us to step beyond the turmoil of the current moment and apply energy to identifying and planning to create long-term systemic change toward a preferred future. [J Contin Educ Nurs. 2023;54(9):392-393.].

STRATEGIC FORESIGHT AS A TOOL FOR COUNTERING MODERN GLOBAL CHALLENGES TO ECONOMIC SECURITY AND INEQUALITY: EU EXPERIENCE FOR UKRAINE IN PROMOTING RESILIENCE AND SUSTAINABILITY

The aim of the article is to explore the potential of strategic foresight in countering contemporary global challenges to economic security and inequality, as well as to analyze the specifics of its use by EU institutions to promote sustainability and resilience. Foresight analysis is characterized as an opportunity to explore the potential consequences of trends that may have different combinations of impact on economic security. Foresight is defined as an integral analytical part of strategic forecasting, focused on forecasting and planning, which determines the opportunities and threats of long-term development, and also suggests strategies for solving problem situations. Strategic foresight differs from traditional planning in that it considers probable, possible, plausible, and preferred futures alike. In addition, while traditional planning tries to prevent failure, foresight encourages resilience, which is early detection and rapid recovery, making it adaptive for managing economic security. One of the most important results of the formation of the institutional infrastructure of foresight research in the EU can be considered the formation on the EU foresight network. The European Commission focuses its activities in the field of strategic foresight-forecasting of sustainable development in four interrelated areas: socio-economic, geopolitical, green and digital. The foresight analysis tools have been identified. The European strategy for economic security is analyzed and its priorities are highlighted. From the standpoint of sustainability and resilience, the problem of inequality both within the EU member states and within the association is emphasized, and the problem of digital inequality is highlighted. The socio-economic, geopolitical, environmental and digital dimensions of the economic security of the EU are characterized and the associated risks and threats are characterized. The foresight analysis of geopolitical risks is considered in the context of assessing the quality of policies. Attention is focused on the risks of cyber threats in the context of the digital transition as a megatrend that accompanies the formation of Industry 4.0, which will cause systemic changes that affect economic security. The problems that need to be solved by politicians both at the national and supranational levels in the implementation of green and digital transitions are noted. It is concluded that the development of economic, social, industrial, digital, environmental policies, by their nature, is based on taking into account development megatrends, but governments usually do not resort to proper scanning of unexpected, unprecedented events and effective response to them. In particular, policies that continue established or past trends and do not take new developments into account may be ineffective, inadequate or even counterproductive. Strategic foresight has become an important tool for shaping EU policy, developing sound forward-looking strategies and ensuring actions linked to long-term goals through the use of various technologies

Preparing for an uncertain future: Merging the strategic foresight toolkit with landscape modeling in northeast Minnesota’s forests

“The Great Acceleration” poses serious challenges to land managers, policy makers, and all who are interested in the global sustainability of socioecological systems. Methods that can effectively address the uncertainty of the future to allow more robust and adaptive planning and management are urgently needed. We present a case study from northeastern Minnesota to highlight how strategic foresight methods and landscape modeling can serve as complementary tools to generate divergent yet plausible participatory scenarios to ultimately model the potential impacts of these scenarios on fundamental ecosystem services over 50 years. The landscape scenarios generated from the scenario process ranged widely, from optimistic futures to dire outcomes; these scenarios were far more divergent than outcomes explored in a traditional factorial landscape modeling study. This greater range in possible futures leads to more useful model outputs to guide the decisions of planners, managers, and policymakers. Our study illustrates advantages of blending the power of multiple strategic foresight tools with landscape modeling to generate alternative future storylines that are enlightening (i.e., expanding the scope of possibilities), useful (via strong contrasts), and yet plausible (i.e., grounded by robust science and stakeholder perspectives). Strategic foresight methods such as horizon scanning can also be useful in on-going monitoring of landscapes to support adaptive management aimed at fostering sustainable futures. Combining these approaches enhances creativity and wide-ranging plausibility (strategic foresight) with science-based assessments of outcomes and trajectories (landscape modeling), increasing the likelihood of creating resilient, preferred futures.

The Story of Futures Studies: An Interdisciplinary Field Rooted in Social Sciences

This article presents the almost century-long history of the development of futures studies in a comprehensive review. Futures studies, rooted in sociology and policy sciences, had become an academic discipline by the 1960s. One of the major global communities representing the discipline, the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF), celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2023. In the 1970s, the focus was placed on discourses on global problems and preferred futures. Futures studies then developed a global institutional community and become a mature discipline by the 1980s and 1990s. Futurists by then had already mutually shared theoretical perspectives, objectives, ethics, and methods, and had produced empirical results. A wide range of comprehensive publications at that time synthesized the foundations and preceding results of futures studies. From the turn of the millennium, active discourse took place on the forthcoming role of futures studies. By that time, the theoretical, methodological, and practical knowledge foundations of the discipline had also appeared in internationally well-documented curricula. Since around 2010, the discipline has been characterized by the development of practical foresight projects. Based on notable trends and identified research gaps, this article formulates up-to-date expectations and research directions within which futures studies might develop in the future.

What Do Future Trends in Medical Education Mean to the Scientific Development of Iran's Health System?

Medical education system in Iran has an essential role in responding to scientific development targets from both education and research perspectives. Investigating future trends and analyzing how they interact with the medical education system helps increase awareness and give insight into the preferred future. The present qualitative study consists of Systematic reviews and interviews that have been analyzed using content analysis. Afterward, the themes and codes were visualized in the form of maps and presented in a focus group discussion of experts to define how medical education trends will impact scientific development. The future trends of Iran's medical education system were classified into six groups: workplace changes, demographic changes, changes in concepts, the emergence of new players, structural changes in universities, and technology development. The next point is how they will influence science development. Their impact on science development is classified into five main groups or main streams of change of new financial models, open science, redesigning the research management, the role of universities, and capacity building. Our findings showed that redesigning the structure of medical education is the most important priority to make the system as agile as needed to capture the signs and act. New meanings and concepts should also be considered in restructuring, like power balance, competency-based and personalized education, cost-effectiveness, and openness.

Four Futures for Occupational Safety and Health.

Rapid changes to the nature of work have challenged the capacity of existing occupational safety and health (OSH) systems to ensure safe and productive workplaces. An effective response will require an expanded focus that includes new tools for anticipating and preparing for an uncertain future. Researchers at the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) have adopted the practice of strategic foresight to structure inquiry into how the future will impact OSH. Rooted in futures studies and strategic management, foresight creates well-researched and informed future scenarios that help organizations better prepare for potential challenges and take advantage of new opportunities. This paper summarizes the inaugural NIOSH strategic foresight project, which sought to promote institutional capacity in applied foresight while exploring the future of OSH research and practice activities. With multidisciplinary teams of subject matter experts at NIOSH, we undertook extensive exploration and information synthesis to inform the development of four alternative future scenarios for OSH. We describe the methods we developed to craft these futures and discuss their implications for OSH, including strategic responses that can serve as the basis for an action-oriented roadmap toward a preferred future.

Patients’ Experiences With the Fit of Virtual Atrial Fibrillation Care During the Pandemic: Qualitative Descriptive Study

In-person health care has been the standard model of care delivery for patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). Despite the growing use of remote technology, virtual health care has received limited formal study in populations with AF. Understanding the virtual care experiences of patients in specialized AF clinics is essential to inform future planning of AF clinic care. This qualitative descriptive study aimed to understand patients' virtual AF clinic care experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were recruited from a pool of patients who were receiving care from an AF clinic and who were enrolled in a larger survey study. A total of 8 virtual focus groups (n=30) were conducted in 2 waves between March 2021 and May 2021. Facilitators used a semistructured discussion guide to ask participants questions about their experiences of virtual care and the perceived quality of virtual care and technology support. Three team members initially open coded group data to create a preliminary coding framework. As the analysis progressed, with subsequent focus groups, the code clusters were refined. The participants were primarily male (21/30, 70%), aged ≥65 years (20/30, 67%), and college graduates (22/30, 73%). Patients found virtual care to be highly beneficial. Central to their experiences of virtual care was its fit or lack of fit with their health needs, which was integrally connected to communication effectiveness and their preferred virtual care future. Practical benefits included flexibility, convenience, and time and cost savings of virtual care. Virtual care fit occurred for small, quick, and mundane issues (eg, medication refills) but was suboptimal for new and more complex issues that patients thought warranted an in-person visit. Fit often reflected the effectiveness of communication between patient and provider and that of in-clinic follow-up. There was near-complete agreement among participants on the acceptability of virtual communication with their providers in addressing their needs, but this depended on adequate reciprocal communication. Without the benefit of in-person physical assessments, patients were uncertain and lacked confidence in communicating the needed, correct, and comprehensive information. Finally, participants described concerns related to ongoing virtual care with recommendations for their preferred future using a hybrid model of care and integrating patient-reported data (ie, blood pressure measurements) in virtual care delivery. Virtual care from a specialty AF clinic provides practical benefits for patients, but they must be weighed against the need for virtual care's fit with patients' needs and problems. The stability and complexity of patients' health needs, their management, and their perceptions of communication effectiveness with providers and clinics must be considered in decisions about appointment modality. Patients' recommendations for future virtual care through use of hybrid models together with systems for data sharing have the potential to optimize fit.

The American Academy of Nursing 50th Anniversary of the Nursing Theory Guided Practice Expert Panel (NTGPEP): Exploring the Past-Re-envisioning the Future.

The Nursing Theory-Guided Practice Expert Panel (NTGP-EP), one of the 14 Expert Panels, is officially designated to advance the mission and strategic goals of the American Academy of Nursing. The NTGP-EP has created a forum for dialogue among nurse scholars interested in advancing nursing theory to promote health and wellbecoming. The purpose of this paper is to share the important work of the NTGP-EP and its history, contributions, and accomplishments, and to propose a member-driven agenda to re-envision our preferred future and the impact of the use of nursing theory to guide nursing education, research, practice, and policy.

Exploring future research and innovation directions for a sustainable blue economy

The blue economy integrates commercial, research and innovation activities across diverse industrial sectors. Achieving a sustainable blue economy requires unlocking the potential of science and innovation to develop innovative ocean sustainability solutions. This study explores the role of foresight in co-creating alternative, preferred futures for a sustainable blue economy looking towards 2030 and in establishing an interdisciplinary dialogue about research and innovation opportunities to achieve these futures. To this end, a foresight exercise is conducted with marine scientists and researchers in 6 countries in Europe. The exercise is designed in three stages: scanning, scenario-building and strategic orientation, and uses a combination of foresight methods to encourage creative thinking and exploration. The scenarios developed in the study describe alternative future worlds built on the establishment of self-sustaining communities and engaged societies; the diffusion of digitalisation and growth of blue biotechnologies; booming ecosystem services and open and collaborative research infrastructures that impact different sectors of the blue economy. A portfolio of research and innovation areas is developed that aims to inspire new research directions in four domains: (i) integrated ocean management tools; (ii) closed loop, circular polyculture systems; (iii) co-creation of innovation and transdisciplinary research; and (iv) open access and collaborative databases supporting ecosystem services. The study highlights the role of foresight in bridging across disciplinary perspectives and industry sectors. Foresight can be used to complement Decision-Support Systems and other quantitative approaches for research agenda-setting and for decision-making on policies addressing sustainability in the marine sciences. The process contributes to futures skills-building at institutional level and helps establish a futures mindset for strategic planning.

Long-term Insights Briefings: a futures perspective

The Public Service Act 2020 requires departmental chief executives to give a long-term insights briefing (LTIB) to the appropriate minister at least once every three years. In an increasingly uncertain world, there are several ways to explore the future that will unfold over the next decades. At this stage of their development, questions can be asked as to how well the current suite of 19 LTIBs are likely to perform as instruments to help identify implications of probable, possible and preferred futures so that policy responses can be made more anticipatory, adaptable and robust. This article provides a futures-thinking context for considering LTIBs and posits a framework for evaluating (and potentially improving) the full set of LTIB documents once they are all published.

Young people’s situated capacity to imagine a desired post-pandemic future: A qualitative methodology for assessing futures consciousness

Futures consciousness (FC), considered to be the basis for human anticipation, is important for its role in facing uncertainties and delineating alternative courses of action. This is especially so for emerging adults, who are traversing a life stage fraught with uncertainty and complexity. The COVID-19 pandemic as a high-impact event may trigger modes of engaging with the future to become more explicit. Through critical engagement with the 5-dimensional FC model (Ahvenharju, Minkkinen, & Lalot, 2018), we develop a methodology for qualitatively assessing FC. We analyze how emerging Dutch and Greek adults narrate FC dimensions (time perspective, agency beliefs, openness to alternatives, systemic awareness, concern for others) in letters written from the perspective of a desired post-Corona future. Results show that emerging adults, although caught-up in a subjective timeframe in which the pandemic is enduring, think beyond immediate concerns. They do so in a way that conveys some attribution of agency and systemic awareness. Openness to alternatives is shown using several sophisticated linguistic devices. When further developed, the methodology will enable educators and futurists to support individual’s imagination of possible and preferred futures. This may contribute to resilient people and societies in and beyond times of economic, health, and environmental crises.

Hindsight Is 2020: A Graduate Student Perspective.

The year 2020 was unpredictable and brought about unimaginable change for our world, disrupting operations within the nursing profession and healthcare systems at large. In this discussion paper, we revisit a report from the Canadian Nurses Association, Toward 2020: Visions for Nursing (Villeneuve and MacDonald 2006), from a graduate student perspective. In this 2006 report, the authors presented a series of predictions for the preferred future of nursing in Canada in 2020. Even without the pandemic, the pre-existing trends in healthcare and nursing did not favour success for the visions presented in this national nursing report. Now, two years after 2020, we examine the extent to which these predictions held true in the following areas: health systems, nursing practice, nursing workforce, nursing education and nursing regulation. We conclude that most of the preferred scenarios were unmet or partially met, and argue that it is critical to enact relevant preferred scenarios now. While the deleterious effects of the pandemic will be felt by the nursing profession for years, these experiences did not hinder our collective ability to lead change in Canada. We offer insights to provide recommendations for nursing actions toward a healthier future for Canadians. The best of nursing in Canada is within sight.

Clean energy futures: An Australian based foresight study

Political decarbonisation commitments and outcompeting renewable electricity costs are disrupting energy systems. This foresight study prepares stakeholders for this dynamic, reactive change by examining visions that constitute a probable, plausible and possible component of future energy systems. Visions were extrapolated through an expert review of energy technologies and Australian case studies. ‘Probable–Abundant’ envisages a high penetration of solar and wind with increased value of balancing services: batteries, pumped hydro and transmission. This vision is exemplified by the South Australian grid, where variable and distributed sources lead generation. ‘Plausible–Traded’ envisages power and power fuel exports given hydrogen and high-voltage direct-current transmission advances, reflected by public and private sector plans to leverage rich natural resources for national and intercontinental exchanges. ‘Possible–Zero’ envisages the application of carbon removal and nuclear technologies in response to the escalating challenge of deep decarbonisation. The Australian critical minerals strategy signals adaptations of high-emission industries to shifting energy resource values. These visions contribute a flexible, accessible framework for diverse stakeholders to discuss uncertain energy systems changes and consider issues from new perspectives. Appraisal of preferred futures allows stakeholders to recognise observed changes as positive or negative and may lead to new planning aspirations.

Counter-Narratives of Structural Oppressions, Stigma and Resistance, and Reproductive and Sexual Health Among Youth Experiencing Homelessness.

Youth experiencing homelessness (YEH) face myriad injustices regarding their reproductive and sexual health and rights. Reproductive and sexual health research with YEH often explores condom-use and sexually transmitted infections, potentially contributing to narrow conceptualizations of YEH as “unclean” or in need of disease-screening. A narrative theory perspective was applied to this study, which allowed for the emergence of alternative storylines, or counter-narratives, which attend to manifestations of power and oppression within the lives of marginalized individuals. Qualitative interviews engaged 30 young people (ages 18–21) accessing shelter services. Narrative analyses identified YEHs’ documentations of dominant narratives related to structural oppressions, stigma, and numerous dimensions of reproductive and sexual health including how they create, through their resistance, counter-narratives that include their preferred futures. YEH emphasized systemic sources of stigma and outlined their criticisms of the state. Within-group stigma emerged as a noteworthy theme, with YEH showing both empathy and ambivalence towards other YEH, along with internalization of stigmatizing narratives about pregnancy and homelessness. Approaches to service provision that further amplify youths’ voices in naming and challenging the many oppressions and stigmas they face should be prioritized. Moreover, policies should be implemented to dismantle the actual root causes of challenges faced by YEH, rather than perpetuating them through measures rooted in interlocking oppressions of discrimination, inequity, and judgment.