Futures Research

I work in the transdisciplinary field of Futures Research (also called Strategic Foresight or simply Futures). Futures Research uses a wide range of methods and techniques to explore possible, plausible, and preferable futures. The goal is to develop foresight — insight into how and why the future could be different than today — to improve policy, planning, and decision making. Examples of Futures Research methods and my projects include:

Scenario Planning is a core method of Futures Research. Scenarios are stories that describe a range of possible and plausible futures, connect the present to the future using cause and effect links, and illustrate key events, decisions, and consequences in the narrative. Scenarios are not predictions. Rather, they describe an array of possibilities to help decision-makers prepare for change in the face of fundamental uncertainty. Using various approaches, I have developed scenarios with research collaborators for North American forest management, the compound disaster of wildland fire management during the COVID-19 pandemic, wood-based nanomaterials futures, combining scenarios with landscape modeling in northeast Minnesota’s forests, and other topics.

Horizon Scanning is a set of techniques for identifying, collecting, and exploring the meaning of emerging issues, trends, and other signals of change that could affect the future of an organization or an area of interest. The goal of horizon scanning is to find indicators of change and create an early warning system to detect potential threats and opportunities. The Forest Futures Horizon Scanning Project is an ongoing effort to identify emerging signals of change that are relevant to forestry decision makers. One of many outputs of this project is a paper that identified fifteen key emerging changes that could help shape the long-term future of forestry.

The Futures Wheel is a structured, participatory brainstorming process that uncovers possible direct and indirect, positive and negative consequences of any type of change. Planners, managers and policy makers can use the results of Futures Wheel exercises to proactively consider longer-term and surprising effects of change to better prepare for it. I have facilitated many futures wheel exercises with diverse stakeholders, including explorations of the possible impacts of abrupt climate change, the lack of age-class diversity in US Northern forests, a possible coming age of wood, growing Indigenous empowerment, and many other emerging issues and trends.

Serious Games are designed to achieve specific educational or other practical purposes beyond pure entertainment. These games take many different forms—from card decks to massive multi-player online games—and have been used in diverse fields for many purposes in recent years, including engaging communities, informing planning, educating participants, and solving real-world problems. An important rationale for the use of gaming methods in Futures Research is that active learning methods are often most effective, and gaming approaches can help participants “pre-experience” alternative futures and gain understanding about preferred futures. The foresight game IMPACT: Forestry Edition was created to help players see the intertwined impacts of change on forests and forestry.

Why Futures Research is Important

I believe that Futures Research and a futures mindset are missing pieces of the puzzle for understanding the human dimensions of natural resources. Futures Research offers many important contributions to planning, management, and policy in forestry, including:

Creating a longer-term perspective: The temporal scales considered in Futures Research are beyond the range usually used in planning and decision making. This longer-term perspective may help identify issues of concern as well as opportunities that could be overlooked with the prevailing shorter-term view.

Exploring key uncertainties and potential surprises: Futures Research can identify and explore fundamental uncertainties and potential surprises, especially those arising from other domains that could affect forest management. This can help facilitate the development of policies to increase adaptive capacity to deal with surprises.

Decreasing reaction time to rapid change: Insights about possible and plausible futures can help decrease reaction time as events rapidly unfold. Decision makers can explore possible responses in advance and react swiftly to change as it occurs. A classic business example is Royal Dutch Shell’s use of scenario planning and its subsequent quick response to the 1973-1974 OPEC oil embargo and price shock.

Anticipating unintended consequences: The methods of Futures Research can help identify potential unintended consequences of new technologies, proposed policies, and social and cultural trends. A better understanding of potential consequences of change can help in the design of strategies that will minimize negative impacts and enhance resilience.

Encouraging thinking big: Futures Research promotes thinking big in terms of multiple disciplinary perspectives, creative problem-solving, and a systems perspective, and can help all stakeholders take a broader and more creative view.

Shaping a preferred future: A preferred future or vision is a compelling description of the future that a group or organization wants to create based on shared deep values and purpose. A clear, shared understanding of the preferred future enhances options and possibilities in the present.