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The 9th S&T Foresight for Japan has recently been completed. A key element of this Foresight is that S&T is now expected to indicate solutions for broad social issues and global issues (climate change, etc.) including those that address Japan's most urgent challenges (e.g. energy, aging population). This mission‐oriented foresight is novel for the Japanese, since prior foresight exercises have been done with a technology focus. This paper aims to address how the new view of foresight – as more than mere technical potentials – has resulted in several types of foresight impacts, which are noted in the main text.

The 9th Delphi Survey involved two types of interdisciplinary perspectives related to Japan's social future (Safe, Secure, Cooperation and Collaboration) and 12 S&T fields. The committees discussed what could emerge within 30 years and involved 26 domains of social expertise and 140 specialists.

The 9th S&T Foresight investigation consists of an integration of three foresight methods – Delphi survey, scenario writing, and capability of local regions for green innovation – regarding sustainable development. Each method provides clear messages, and has unique impacts.

Overall, a major foresight impact has been to enable a broader view of innovation to prevail in this ninth foresight, where social‐scenario insights and more socially adaptive policies complement the traditional S&T focus developed by Delphi surveys 1‐8. This shifted the policy discourse toward societal innovation from technical innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a low-cost, high return model for implementing a programmatic foresight function that is collaboratively integrated with the organization’s existing policy, planning and intelligence (or policy research) functions. Focusing on government agencies, especially those supporting liberal democratic governments, the purpose of the current paper is to propose a new, practical, low-cost and high-return model for implementing a programmatic strategic foresight function that is collaboratively integrated with the organization’s existing policy, planning and intelligence functions. The paper describes the relevant organizational considerations and options for structural adjustments, and suggests how the proposed model can maximize decision-making effectiveness without disrupting pre-existing structures, operations and products. The paper further discusses the necessity and involvement of a central government foresight agency and a non-hierarchical distributed network linking the foresight units.

Possible solutions are considered with respect to costs of development and implementation, risk (likelihood, consequence and uncertainty) of the new function’s failure, direct negative or positive effect on the performance of existing functions, the level of cross-organizational involvement in or collaboration with the new function, the level of cross-organization tangible benefits and the level of vertical involvement, especially at the executive level.

With few exceptions, the implementation of foresight by governments has not been at all methodical, but has followed many different paths, where it has occurred at all. The approach proposed in this paper – establishing a central foresight agency, propagating individual agency-based small programmatic foresight units and virtual teams and creating a non-hierarchical distributed network to link all of them – appears to best meet the success criteria set out in the paper.

Governments, especially liberal democratic ones, and their agencies that have previously shied away from methodically implementing strategic foresight or that have attempted to do so without real success now have an approach that is likely to produce the desired results.

The paper creates a sound framework for governments, especially liberal democratic ones, and their agencies to consider and proceed with the implementation of foresight functions and networks to support them.

The proposed approach is entirely new and generally challenges current practices.

The purpose of this paper is to report on how foresight methods are being used to address a “wicked problem” for the global furniture industry: “What are we going to do in the furniture industry in high cost countries (HCC) to maintain our future competitiveness with respect to the competition coming from low cost countries?”

This study explores one sectorial initiative, CEFFOR® (Furniture Foresight Centre, headquarters in Valencia, Spain), that attempts to mitigate the negative impact of globalisation on the competitiveness of the furniture industry in HCCs, by creating a vision of a preferable future through the use of a set of qualitative foresight tools (structural analysis, morphological analysis/field anomaly relaxation, and cross impact analysis) involving a worldwide expert panel.

This paper examines the set‐up phase of the CEFFOR initiative, and describes the main elements of the morphological space developed to profile possible future configurations of the global furniture industry. Future papers will report on further model development and the subsequent take‐up of this work.

The approach used could be adapted to a variety of other industrial sectors. While this study examines a traditional industrial sector, there is no conceptual limitation on its use in other sectors, although such adaptation should clearly remain alert to the unique aspects of any industry.

The novelty of this initiative is the application of a normative foresight approach in a traditional industrial sector in order to generate a shared vision of a sustainable future, and to integrate this foresight approach with an existing business intelligence system.

The mere generation of foresight results is not sufficient in itself to influence research policy. Research policy makers need specific information and insight on how the structured view of the future provided by foresight affects their strategic planning. Therefore, deriving the maximum benefit from foresight activities requires a carefully designed and actively driven transfer process of foresight results into research policy making. This paper aims to present such a process (“strategic dialogue”) and illustrate it with recent examples from Germany.

The authors compare strategic dialogues with existing dialogue instruments and investigate the relevance of their theoretical foundations to transferring foresight results into research policy making. They capture the lessons learnt from such dialogues in a seven‐step process that can be adapted to specific situations. Specific success factors are identified and linked to the process.

Strategic dialogues have proved to be an effective and efficient instrument for achieving the transfer of results from strategic processes such as foresight into research policy making. They ensure that foresight results are processed into a form that is directly useful as an input for policy development. They also help to create a joint vision for the future and to shape supporting infrastructure measures.

The transfer of foresight results into research policy making has not featured prominently so far in discussions of foresight efforts and methods. However, it is a crucial element in ensuring that such activities have maximum impact.

This article aims to show the opportunity and benefits of linking territorial foresight tools to urban planning procedures. Additionally, it suggests ways to reinforce the scenario design method with more in‐depth analysis, without losing its qualitative nature and communication advantages.

These assumptions are tested in a scenario design exercise that explores the future evolution of the sustainable development paradigm and its implications in the Spanish urban development model.

Major findings are obtained on the feasibility of a systematic approach that provides anticipatory intelligence about future disruptive events that may affect the natural environment and the socioeconomic fabric of a given territory. In addition, the study confirms that foresight offers interesting opportunities for urban planners, such as anticipating changes, fostering participation and building networks, in contrast to its perception as a mere story‐telling technique that generates oversimplified visions without the backing of rigorous analysis.

In order to boost the perception of scenario design as an added value instrument for urban planners, three sets of implications – functional, parametric and spatial – are displayed to provide substantial information for policy makers.

The value of the present work lies in the synergy that can be generated between territorial foresight and urban planning, offering a great opportunity for policy makers to use futurists' output as input for urban planners' work.

The purpose of this paper is to present the changes in political and socioeconomic conditions after 25 years of transformation and how it provided to adopt new methodology in tourism planning. It shows the possibilities offered by the use of the foresight process in planning the development of tourism in Poland. Since one of the main foresight goals is to identify trends, the paper takes attempt to verify trends that occurred in Poland after 1989 and if they have now and will have in the near future influence on Polish tourism. Detailed objective is to characterize the systemic transformation and its impact on the tourism economy.

Paper is the review, which used literature, legislation and strategic documents query. It also includes comparative analysis.

The analysis of the political and economic changes that have taken place in Poland over the last 25 years shows that they were positive for the development of tourism base. The impact of globalization and global trends is now clearly noticeable also in Poland. Political and economic changes allow the use of foresight methodology in studies on the future of tourism while maintaining its main attributes: anticipation, participation, action, networking, vision.

The analysis included the impact of political changes and social trends on the tourist economy. Proposals that show the positive aspects of these changes relate to tourism and present extensive opportunities to create scenarios, both at the national and regional levels.

The analysis forms the basis for the activities of tourism entities in Poland. It shows the characteristics for the future of the tourism market particularly the demand side.

The analysis of changes in systemic and social trends enables anticipation of changes in tourism as a social phenomenon.

The paper presents the historical basis for the development of tourism in Poland after political changes in relation to the planning of tourism by using the methodology of foresight. It also presents these phenomena and social trends that have an impact on the development of tourism.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the contribution of the EFMN Issue Analysis to the identification of key emerging science and technology issues of high relevance for European policies, as well as to the development of future European science and technology policy priorities. As such, it describes the experience of the past three EFMN Issue Analyses (2005 to 2007), which focused on “Cognitive Science” (2005), “Healthy Ageing” (2006) and “Emerging Knowledge‐based Economy and Society” (2007).

The annual EFMN Issue Analysis aims at selecting and analysing one key emerging science and technology issue that is relevant for European Union policies. The selection is based on the screening and analysis of recent international foresights along a set of predefined criteria.

The paper highlights future socio‐economic perspectives and S&T developments coming along with the topics “Cognitive Science”, “Healthy Ageing” and “Emerging Knowledge‐based Economy and Society”, as well as policy recommendations as emerged from the respective expert workshop discussions. The paper also reflects on the methodology used, and experience of, and the lessons learned from the last three Issue Analyses.

This paper is of interest for foresight practitioners and policy‐makers at European level, as well as at national or regional level in European Member States.

The paper highlights the role of the EFMN Issue Analysis in providing the basis for well‐informed (science and technology) policy‐making.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the research and literature through the development of the theme of competence foresight. In addition, the aim is to construct information pathways for the foresight mechanism, for the use of practitioners, to enable them to manage talent and competences with an anticipatory perspective.

The research strategy is theoretical research with interpretive concept analysis approach. The research compares, compiles and combines theories and perspectives of strategic human resource management and development, talent management, competence management and foresight.

The results combine the information pathways and elements of the pathways for the competence foresight mechanism. The main three pathways in the mechanism are the pathways for detecting the needed competences for strategy implementation, the pathways for detecting rapid changes and the loss of competences.

As talent management frameworks are organization specific, so are the mechanisms and information pathways for competence foresight. The results can be adjusted and developed to fit into other organizations.

The analysis and results provide the practitioners in human resources with new perspectives to use systematic foresight processes in talent management and development. The results can also be used for modelling the information pathways for the competence foresight mechanism in talent management software.

The research on human resources development and talent management does not deal with competence foresight. This paper addresses this deficiency and brings new, valuable perspectives of foresight and future studies for researchers and practitioners. This paper challenges further research on various aspects of competence foresight.

Increasing urbanization in the Asia and Pacific region is leading to a rapid increase in the number of megacities. A major concern is the issue of sustainable transport. This article describes the procedures used and results of a multi‐economy foresight study of sustainable transport in megacities of the Asia‐Pacific region. Key issues and policy actions needed are identified.

There are many challenges to be addressed in today's world. Futurists have a process, methods and skills to submit to a positive advancement of these challenges, which is the purpose of this paper.

The approach is the author's synthesis and reflection of the more positive aspects of addressing the problems facing contemporary society.

The author concludes the visioning operation needs to be near the beginning of the future's practice with the focus on presencing “what does the future want from us in this matter?” How can people serve “it” instead of their ego? This will take maturity, being conscious, and having an attitude of gratitude and service to something bigger than ourselves.

When futurist practitioners practice the approach of foresight planning, the viewpoint examined here is that the vision exercise should be placed at the beginning of the process. The priority of the visioning activity should include an inquiry of what wants to emerge from the “evolutionary integral future.” This consideration widens the perspective to include the well‐being of the whole ecosystem, with the possible benefits of resilience, waking up, growing up, and showing up.