Current events

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'''Jointly Shaping and Launching the Foresight Wiki''' is a planned workshop, during which the Foresight Wiki will be officially launched. Prior to the event, each participant will put one Foresight case online within the [[Portal:Narratives|Narratives]] portal. Each participant is welcomed to tell his/hers Foresight story in any way s/he think best to bring out the most interesting aspects. It is recommended to keep in mind that some readers may be interested in the outcomes of an exercise while others may rather want to know “how it was done”. In particular those practitioners who will use the experience to do something similar will most likely be interested in “what went wrong” and “lessons learned” at least as much as in success stories. [[Jointly Shaping and Launching the Foresight Wiki| '''(more...)''']]
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The event is dedicated to the launching of a “Blueprint for Organizing Foresight in Universities”. This is the result of the work done by a group of experts as part of their contribution to the project Quality and Leadership for Romanian Higher Education. Let’s ponder for a second on the meaning of the word “blueprint” in the context of "foresight" and "higher education". It surely cannot designate a how-to guide, or some sort of substitute for foresight manuals. The reader cannot expect to execute a prescribed set of steps and then end up with a ready-made foresight process for his university. At the same time, we expect that the reader is someone beyond the narrow borders of the futurists’ community. Hence, the “blueprint” is not academic work, geared towards an academic audience. And it cannot be just another report, such as the “blueprints” for regional foresight produced by the European Commission. [[MLW:Foresight in the University| '''(more...)''']]
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'''Integrating Futures Methodologies''' is a workshop to be organized in Bucharest, coordinated by Prof. Ziauddin Sardar and Prof. George Cairns. Future studies and foresight have a rich store of methodologies – ranging from forecasting, scenario planning and trend analysis to Delphi, modelling, simulation, cross-impact analysis, early warning signals, weak signals, road maps, visioning, backcasting, casual layered analysis and integral futures, to mention just a few. ‘The State of the Future 2009’ report, from the Millennium Project, lists over 30 methods now being used in futures and foresight work. However, given the characteristics of contemporary times where everything is seen to be connected to everything else, complexity and uncertainty is the norm, and there is an increasing tendency towards chaotic behaviour – no single method can provide us with an adequate way of perceiving alternative futures. We need approaches that encompass different and divergent perspectives, concerns of diverse groups and cultures, and contradictory desires, hopes and aspirations for the future. Moreover, futures work on complex and ambiguous – or intractable – problems requires an inter- and trans-disciplinary approach. [[MLW:Integrating Futures Methodologies| '''(more...)''']]
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The workshop explores the issue of expert knowledge and predictions using conceptual, theoretical and methodological perspectives offered by social sciences. The agenda is organized around a set of questions such as: What is the role of expert judgment in the important task of social and strategic forecasting? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the methods and approaches through which expert predictions and forecasts are produced? What are the strengths of expert knowledge aggregation procedures? What are their limits? Is the claim of expertise in forecasting--by academics or intelligence analysts, independent pundits, journalists or institutional specialists— legitimate? In what measure? What are the limits of social prediction, be it through aggregative methods or individual approaches? Is there a direct correlation between the knowledge of the expert and the quality of his or her forecasts? How could one assess the link expert knowledge forecasting – policy making? To respond to the challenges posed by these and other similar questions, a group of top international scholars of social sciences, expertise studies and prediction methods and theory have been invited to Bucharest for a three day workshop. [[MLW:Expert Knowledge, Prediction, Forecasting| '''(more...)''']]
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'''Crazy Foresight''' is a workshop to be organized in Bucharest,in Jamuary 2011. The coordinators are Prof. George Cairns and Prof. Ziauddin Sardar.
 
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‘Any useful idea about the future', says Jim Dator – considered by many to be grandfather of the field –  'should appear to be ridiculous'. Why? Because much of the future is going to be totally novel and has not been currently or previously experienced. Thus, anything useful that one can say about the future would appear to most people as quite crazy. Dator goes on to state, in his Seventh Law of Futures, that 'if futurists expect to be useful, they should expect to be ridiculed and for their ideas initially to be rejected'. In a slightly different vein, Sardar's First Law of Futures Studies states that 'futures studies are wicked'. They are wicked because they deal with 'wicked problems' which are by nature complex, chaotic, interconnected with in-built contradictions and uncertainty. But futures studies are also 'wicked in the sense that they are playfully open ended (like a 'scientific' discipline they do not offer a single solution but only possibilities). Their boundaries, such as they are, are totally porous and they are quite happy to borrow ideas and tools, whatever is needed, from any and all disciplines and discourses' [[MLW:Crazy Foresight| '''(more...)''']]
‘Any useful idea about the future', says Jim Dator – considered by many to be grandfather of the field –  'should appear to be ridiculous'. Why? Because much of the future is going to be totally novel and has not been currently or previously experienced. Thus, anything useful that one can say about the future would appear to most people as quite crazy. Dator goes on to state, in his Seventh Law of Futures, that 'if futurists expect to be useful, they should expect to be ridiculed and for their ideas initially to be rejected'. In a slightly different vein, Sardar's First Law of Futures Studies states that 'futures studies are wicked'. They are wicked because they deal with 'wicked problems' which are by nature complex, chaotic, interconnected with in-built contradictions and uncertainty. But futures studies are also 'wicked in the sense that they are playfully open ended (like a 'scientific' discipline they do not offer a single solution but only possibilities). Their boundaries, such as they are, are totally porous and they are quite happy to borrow ideas and tools, whatever is needed, from any and all disciplines and discourses' [[MLW:Crazy Foresight| '''(more...)''']]
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Revision as of 15:26, 28 September 2010

Current events

The Current events portal presents worldwide events in the field of Future Studies & Foresight. In particular, all the Mutual Learning Workshops organised during the Quality and Leadership for Romanian Higher Education project, implementing the concept of Bucharest Dialogues, are presented in this section of the Foresight Wiki.
Members of the FORwiki Community are invited to state their willingness to participate in these events and cooperate for their organizing. If you have an idea for an event that you feel it would be of interest for the Foresight Community of Practice, create a FORwiki page, list it under On the community's agenda, and try to create an alliance with other members of the FORwiki Community around it.

Past events

In preparation

Foresight in the University

The event is dedicated to the launching of a “Blueprint for Organizing Foresight in Universities”. This is the result of the work done by a group of experts as part of their contribution to the project Quality and Leadership for Romanian Higher Education. Let’s ponder for a second on the meaning of the word “blueprint” in the context of "foresight" and "higher education". It surely cannot designate a how-to guide, or some sort of substitute for foresight manuals. The reader cannot expect to execute a prescribed set of steps and then end up with a ready-made foresight process for his university. At the same time, we expect that the reader is someone beyond the narrow borders of the futurists’ community. Hence, the “blueprint” is not academic work, geared towards an academic audience. And it cannot be just another report, such as the “blueprints” for regional foresight produced by the European Commission. (more...)

On the community's agenda

MLW:Expert Knowledge, Prediction, Forecasting

The workshop explores the issue of expert knowledge and predictions using conceptual, theoretical and methodological perspectives offered by social sciences. The agenda is organized around a set of questions such as: What is the role of expert judgment in the important task of social and strategic forecasting? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the methods and approaches through which expert predictions and forecasts are produced? What are the strengths of expert knowledge aggregation procedures? What are their limits? Is the claim of expertise in forecasting--by academics or intelligence analysts, independent pundits, journalists or institutional specialists— legitimate? In what measure? What are the limits of social prediction, be it through aggregative methods or individual approaches? Is there a direct correlation between the knowledge of the expert and the quality of his or her forecasts? How could one assess the link expert knowledge – forecasting – policy making? To respond to the challenges posed by these and other similar questions, a group of top international scholars of social sciences, expertise studies and prediction methods and theory have been invited to Bucharest for a three day workshop. (more...)

Crazy Foresight

‘Any useful idea about the future', says Jim Dator – considered by many to be grandfather of the field – 'should appear to be ridiculous'. Why? Because much of the future is going to be totally novel and has not been currently or previously experienced. Thus, anything useful that one can say about the future would appear to most people as quite crazy. Dator goes on to state, in his Seventh Law of Futures, that 'if futurists expect to be useful, they should expect to be ridiculed and for their ideas initially to be rejected'. In a slightly different vein, Sardar's First Law of Futures Studies states that 'futures studies are wicked'. They are wicked because they deal with 'wicked problems' which are by nature complex, chaotic, interconnected with in-built contradictions and uncertainty. But futures studies are also 'wicked in the sense that they are playfully open ended (like a 'scientific' discipline they do not offer a single solution but only possibilities). Their boundaries, such as they are, are totally porous and they are quite happy to borrow ideas and tools, whatever is needed, from any and all disciplines and discourses' (more...)



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