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Knowledge Base
Links
So you think ‘futures’ or ‘foresight’ is another one of those fringe concepts with no business credibility or scholarship. Think again with this selection of many international government, corporate and NGO web sites and links to organisations and resources.
The fields of strategic foresight, change management and strategic human resource development encompass diverse perspectives. Your research should be informed and critical regarding these perspectives to bring clarity to the diversity and an understanding of where you yourself stand.
The Consulting Associates at Strategic Alignment also encompass a wide range of perspectives but, as a company, we are committed to integral methodological pluralism and critical approaches.
The following links will help you develop your understanding of these fields. Please note, however, their inclusion is not an endorsement of any products or services in such sites, and no information in such sites has been endorsed or approved by Strategic Alignment so we invite you to be critical.
Websites
Commonwealth Department of the Parliamentary Library contains the Science, Technology, Environment and Resources Group Report “Australia 2020: Foresight for our Future” by Matthew James
The Business Council of Australia (BCA) has undertaken a major Scenario Planning exercise for Australian business and society and their site has a number of other futures-related reports.
The American Council for the United Nations University is a US-based non-government organisation that provides a point of contact between Americans and the primary research organ of the UN - the United Nations University (UNU) - which focuses intellectual resources from all nations on world problems. Their Millennium Project is a global participatory futures research think tank of futurists, scholars, business planners, and policy makers who work for international organizations, governments, corporations, NGOs, and universities to continuously update and improve humanity's thinking about the future and making that thinking available for feedback as a geographically and institutionally dispersed think tank.
The OECD International Futures Programme provides the Organisation with early warning of emerging issues, pinpoints major developments, and analyses key long-term concerns to help governments map strategy.
UK Foresight, together with the Horizon Scanning Centre, produce challenging visions of the future to ensure effective strategies now, by providing a core of excellence in science based futures expertise and access to leaders in government, science and business.
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Other Key Websites
ASPO-Australia is an association of researchers, professionals and others with an interest in the study of peak oil and gas. They are part of a network of organisations around the world affiliated with the original Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO). A very rich site for authoritative Australian and global information.
One of the leading institutes of research and learning in the world is in the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Victoria, formerly the Australian Foresight Institute. The above link contains information about their graduate programs in Strategic Foresight.
Foresight International is the web site of Professor Richard Slaughter who is the Founder of the Australian Foresight Institute at Swinburne University. Richard built an international reputation through futures scholarship, educational innovation, strategic and social foresight and the identification of a knowledge base for futures studies. His main aim is to facilitate the emergence of a society and culture that is not merely driven by the past but also responsive to the emerging near-future context.
Integral University—also known as the Multiplex—will at first be an online learning community with the world’s most extensive integral knowledge library, interactive learning environments, and online courses. It will very soon offer accredited courses in a variety of fields, certificates of learning, training seminars, and, eventually, accredited graduate-level degrees. This organisation is based on the concepts of the Integral Operating System developed by genius polymath Ken Wilber.
The Official Ken Wilber site outlines the concepts of one of the greatest philosophers in the last few decades and arguably the greatest theoretical psychologist of all time. There are a plethora of sites that analyse and build on Wilber’s prolific works. His many books can be found at Shambhala Publications.
The Spiral Dynamics model of developmental psychology, developed by Dr Don Beck and Dr Chris Cowan, based on the work of the late Dr Clare W. Graves, is an important adjunct to Wilber’s Integral Operating System. Chris Cowan now runs the National Values Centre.
Infinite Futures is the web site of Dr Wendy Schulz
The World Watch Institute is a non-government, independent organisation providing interdisciplinary research, a global focus, and accessible writing that has made it a leading source of information on the interactions among key environmental, social, and economic trends. Their work revolves around the transition to an environmentally sustainable and socially just society—and how to achieve it.
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is a coalition of 180 international companies in 35 countries and 20 major industrial sectors united by a shared commitment to sustainable development via the three pillars of economic growth, ecological balance and social progress. The Australian Members are BHP Billiton, Insurance Australia Group, Lend Lease, Westpac Banking Corporation, and Woodside Petroleum Ltd. Whilst not strictly a futures site, corporate sustainability is a key issue in futures. The WBCSD Network Coordinator is the Business Council of Australia.
The Arlington Institute is a non-profit, US-based research institute that specialises in thinking about global futures and trying to influence rapid, positive change through systemic, non-linear approaches to planning.
The Long Now Foundation is a US-based non-profit foundation that hopes to provide counterpoint to today's "faster/cheaper" mind-set and promoting "slower/better" thinking by creatively fostering responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years. Apart from the many site resources, they have developed many significant cross-cultural, futures oriented information projects, the world’s slowest computer, and “The Clock of the Long Now”, a prototype 10,000 year clock.
The Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) is an independent, international research institute originally established by the Swedish Government that specialises in sustainable development and environment issues.
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Professional Organisations
The Association of Professional Futurists is a thriving global community of some 200 professional futurists committed to leadership, excellence and innovation in the futures field.
The World Futures Studies Federation is a global network of over 300 individuals (practicing futurists, researchers, teachers, scholars, policy analysts, activists and others from over 60 countries) and 20 institutions, established in 1967, whose mission is to promote futures education and research.
The World Futures Society is a diverse group of 25,000 people in more than 80 countries that strive to serve as a neutral clearinghouse for ideas about the future.
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Books
The RAND Corporation’s Pardee Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition list of 50 books for thinking about the future.
60 Key Works - A Beginner's Guide to the Futures Literature by Kjell Dahle, Ideas Bank Foundation, Oslo, Norway.
Foresight International, Professor Richard Slaughter’s site has his catalogue of books and publications.
Metafutures the site of Professor Sohail Inayatullah, the developer of Causal Layered Analysis, the first major new futures theory and method since Delphi, almost forty years ago. The site has these and other books and resources for sale.
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Reports/Articles
Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship at Swinburne University of Technology – a list of recent Monographs and Articles of Interest from the former Australian Foresight Institute.
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Journals/Magazines
Those listed are public domain unless described as being “subscription-only” in which case single articles may be purchased on-line:
Futures.The leading scholarly magazine in this area, the monthly Futures® by Elsevier is an international, refereed, multidisciplinary journal concerned with medium and long-term futures of cultures and societies, science and technology, economics and politics, environment and the planet and individuals and humanity. It covers the methods and practices of futures studies and seeks to examine possible and alternative futures of all human endeavors. Futures® seeks to promote divergent and pluralistic visions, ideas and opinions about the future.
Foresight produced by Emerald, is a subscription-only, business-oriented journal, focusing on the application of foresight methods to business and providing the tools to track the most relevant and strategically significant issues – social, political, economic, technological and environmental – that are shaping the future.
Journal of Futures Studies. A scholarly journal, is published by the Graduate Institute of Futures Studies, Tamkang University, Tamsui, Taipei, Taiwan (in English), focusing on critical and integral futures - a good contrast with the positivist and technological focus of many of the American publications. Some of the JFS articles are available online.
Technological Forecasting and Social Change is a highly respected journal published by Elsevier covering a wide range of topics that tends towards the “hard" numerical forecasting end of the futures studies spectrum.
Long Range Planning by Elsevier is the leading international journal in the field of strategic planning and often has articles touching on futures-related issues.
The Journal of Change Management is a subscription only, international, peer-reviewed forum to explore all the strategic and tactical factors affecting and effecting change in organizations today.
The Journal of Organizational Change Management is a subscription only, international, peer-reviewed journal on the philosophies and practices which underpin successful organizational change.
The Learning Organization is a subscription only, international, peer-reviewed journal on the concepts and ideas underpinning organisational learning and learning organisation.
The Manoa Journal of Fried and Half-Fried Ideas
This on-line journal is an occasional paper series published by the Hawai'i Research Center for Futures Studies (HRCFS) , headed by Jim Dator.. Established by the State Legislature in 1971, HRCFS is a unit of the Social Science Research Institute at the University of Hawai'i. The Manoa Journal is a forum for testing out ideas about the future in the early stages, before they are aired or published for conventional audiences or journals.
Futurist. Regarded as a "pop" or uncritical, somewhat superficial bimonthly futures magazine, it is US-centric and produced by the World Future Society.
Futures Research Quarterly. Also from the World Future Society - contains more theoretical and philosophical articles than the Futurist.
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More links
Many of the sites above will have more links, however, one of the most useful is http://www.jovokutatas.lap.hu/ but don’t be deterred because it’s Hungarian, the links are in English and this is one of the most extensive lists of foresight and futures sites that you will find.
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