Foresight in Action: Developing Policy-Oriented Scenarios Book

List of Figures, Tables and Boxes ix

Acknowledgements xi

List of Acronyms and Abbreviations xiii

1 Researching Policy-Oriented Foresight in Action 1

Aims 2

Introduction to foresight 3

Dutch foresight 8

Research questions 11

Research approach 12

Audience 17

Structure of the book 19

2 First Impressions of Foresight Practice 23

Forecasting and foresight 23

Preparing the journey 25

Conclusions 38

3 Dealing with Policy 41

Introduction 41

Policy-free scenarios 41

Policy-free and policy-oriented foresight 43

The no (significant) policy change principle 47

Struggling with policy 50

Policy at the framing level 57

Conclusions 58

4 Practising the Scenario Matrix 61

Attending to the scenario matrix 61

Textbook descriptions: The backbone functional meaning 62

Getting started: Backbone and foundation 65

Analysing multiple representations 67

Multiplicity continues to reign: The scaffold functional meaning 70

More functional meanings: The showcase 73

Conclusions 74

5 Dealing with Prospective Uncertainty 79

Prospective uncertainty 79

Uncertainty awareness 80

Uncertainty manners 82

The danger of 'certainification' 97

Conclusions 100

6 The Past, the Present and the Future 105

Introduction 105

Meantime 106

Temporal repertoires 106

A case in time 108

Discontinuity in foresight 119

Conclusions 133

7 Reflection on Action 137

Summary of findings 137

Discussion 140

From reflection on action to reflection in action 142

Lessons for policy audiences 144

References 147

Appendix 163

Index 167