Networks and the future: A new methodological approach to envision and create the network society of tomorrow

This paper aims to illustrate how the combination of Network Analysis and Futures Studies becomes a powerful instrument for envisioning and analyzing futures and social change. The study of three cases shows network analysis becoming an analytical tool in futures studies while, at the same time, acquiring the dimension of change and dynamics steaming from the futurist perspective.     

Environmental outlooks: How they frame futures and long term uncertainty

Futures studies intend to structure our knowledge and our judgement about the future by handling facts and values in a certain way. In other words, futures studies frame futures. These frames might be powerful, triggering social action and societal transformation, yet they risk to be criticised and provoke scepticism. The environmental field has a long tradition in futures studies: environmental outlooks. Some of these outlooks, e.g. those published by the IPCC are among the most prominent examples of outlooks that provoke scientific, social and political debate, create commotion and provoke action. Part of these discussions deal with how outlooks frame the future and how they handle the uncertainty inevitably linked to framing futures. The way these challenges are dealt with may affect the overall assessment of an environmental outlook. This article attempts to identify the way environmental outlooks frame futures. We do not strive for exhaustiveness, but deliberately restrict to an in-depth analysis of a handful of recent environmental outlooks. We conclude that environmental outlooks reflect a lack of clarity and argumentation upon how they frame futures and how they deal with uncertainty. This epistemological and methodological ambiguity risk to affect the outlooks’ credibility and impact.     

Transcending flatland: Implications of Ken Wilber's meta-narrative for futures studies

The Western futures project was originally founded on empiricist notions of prediction, forecasting and control. While other approaches to futures work, other traditions and ways of knowing, have certainly become established, the early framing of Futures Studies arguably occurred out of this broadly reductionist framework—what Wilber has since termed `flatland'. As a result, current ideologies such as: economic growth, globalisation, the pre-eminence accorded to science and technology, and `man's conquest of nature'—were insufficiently problematised. Technology-led views of the future remain influential within Futures Studies, bureaucratic thinking and popular culture. In this view, the future is less open than it might be because it is seen merely as an extension of the present. Critical Futures Studies question such assumptions. The paper explores how the work of this leading transpersonal synthesist can contribute both to a broadening and deepening of Futures Studies and thus help to activate cultural options that are presently obscured.     

Ethical dilemmas: Teaching futures in schools

Educational policy is implicitly futures oriented, yet in most instances fails to engage learners with explicit futures tools and concepts at a school level. Futures studies in education, or futures education has the potential to reposition learning as purposeful and mobilizes the lives of participants by connecting the curriculum of schools with the multifaceted futures of learners. This is a complex task within the tensions often existing between: the cultural role of a school, the expectations of a society, the expertise of teachers, and the increasingly diverse needs of learners (Bateman, 2012). It is between the tensions of these things that the ‘ethical’ issues of what is taught, or omitted as content in a classroom and the consequences of these choices are evident.This paper highlights ethical and moral dilemmas, as they were apparent in two futures education projects. In the first study, the teachers discuss the inherent limitations of offering a broader and more futures oriented curriculum. In the second study, teachers reflect upon their students’ anxiety with regards to futures images as they are interrogated within a curriculum study. Each of these studies highlights the ethical challenges that arise, when possible, preferable and probable futures are developed as part of learning in school settings, which are culturally and demographically diverse.Tirri and Husu (2002) highlight the ethical dilemmas, which emerge in classrooms around the world, based on conflicts in values and competing intentions between key stakeholders. In the studies which contribute to this discussion, there is evidence to suggest that futures thinking causes conflict within an individual's perception of how the world should be, or their worldview as a result of futures imagining which goes beyond what is taken for granted, or is an assumed future eventuality. In the same way, Carrington, Deppeler, and Moss (2010) argue that all curriculum choices about what is taught (or not taught) in a classroom reflect an ethical decision made by a teacher, with regards to what is foregrounded for learning and what is omitted.It is crucial to re-examine the role of a school in educating students for their futures, as opposed to educating students with an aim of furthering governmental agendas. More significantly, however, as this paper highlights, it is exploring the boundaries of what is acceptable or unacceptable, appropriate or inappropriate to teach in a classroom, given the changing diversities of schools and education systems throughout the world.     

An Integral extension of causal layered analysis

Causal layered analysis (CLA) is a futures method developed by Sohail Inayatullah and since applied by numerous futurists across multiple content areas. The central assumption of CLA is that there are different levels of reality and ways of knowing; beneath the popular conceptions of an issue (the litany) and more academic analysis of systemic causes are deep worldview commitments, discourses, myths and metaphors. This layered understanding of reality initially seems to resonate with ideas from Ken Wilber's Integral Theory, which identifies developmental levels across behavioural, social, psychological and cultural quadrants. On closer inspection, there are some important theoretical and conceptual differences between CLA and Integral Theory; from an Integral perspective, the layers in CLA confuse quadrants, developmental levels and developmental lines. In this paper, I explore these differences in search of a resolution that will allow the fruitful application of CLA within an Integral Futures framework. I find that CLA, as currently conceived, is not an Integral method in its own right. However, CLA has great value for Integral Futures work as a way of drawing attention to the neglected cultural dimension of futures. Further, with some modifications and extensions, a more Integral application of CLA seems possible.     

中国饲料工业期货的价格发现实证研究

本文借助向量自回归模型、协整检验、误差修正模型、方差分解、脉冲响应函数等方法,以中国唯一的饲料工业期货———大连商品交易所豆粕期货品种为例,研究了期货价格与现货价格之间的动态关系,定量刻画了期货市场在价格发现中的作用。研究结果显示:豆粕期货价格与现货价格存在相互引导关系,并且期货与现货价格之间存在长期均衡关系,对豆粕期货来说,期货市场在价格发现功能中起到主导作用。     

Professional standards in futures work

The question of professional standards in the futures arena is a major, but unresolved issue. The paper begins with aspects of a rationale. It then seeks to briefly define Futures Studies (FS) and to answer two questions: what is a futurist, and how can one become a futurist? It summarises various proposals for establishing standards including Bell's for a code of ethics. A number of questions about professional capabilities and behaviour are posed and some provisional answers are given. Several implications are derived for the World Futures Studies Federation as a ‘peak body’. The paper concludes that for FS to fulfil its potential it must pursue quality in every area.     

The evolution of futures in school education

School education seems to be mostly stuck in an outdated industrial era worldview, unable to sufficiently address the significance and increasing rapidity of changes to humanity that are upon us. An integrated forward-looking view should, now more than ever, be of central importance in how we educate. Yet there is little sign that—unlike corporations—school systems are recognising the true value of futures studies. A brief history of futures in school education shows the significant role played by the World Futures Studies Federation in its evolution to date. The article also introduces integral analysis as a way of opening up new possibilities to help school education develop due foresight and to more fully realise its potential as a prime facilitator in individual and cultural evolution.     

论期货公司业务创新空间

本文在<期货交易管理条例>的法律框架内,从两个方面对我国期货公司的业务创新机遇进行分析:一是在现行金融市场和期货监管制度下期货公司的业务创新空间,二是在<期货交易管理条例>规制内,期货业务的制度创新空间.本文认为,在法规允许范嗣内积极开展与银行、信托公司、券商等金融机构的业务合作,是期货业务创新的现实突破口;以制度创新推动期货公司的业务创新,逐步扩大期货公司在境外期货、期货投资咨询与顾问、期货公司受托理财、期货交易顾问与期货基金等业务以及自有资本使用范围等方面的行政许可范围,将能真正打开期货公司业务创新的新天地.     

我国金属商品期货价格指数与PPI关系探析

期货价格指数在国外早已成为通货膨胀的早期预警指标,为中央银行货币政策的制定和调整提供了重要的参考。本文在借鉴国外金属商品期货价格指数编制方法的基础上．提出了符合中国国情的指数编制和修正方法,编制出我国上海期货交易所的金属商品期货价格指数。实证结果表明：以2008年1月1日至2011年4月31日为样本区间,采用最优指数编制方法．可以得出国内金属商品期货指数对生产者价格指数的先行时间达5个月,能较好反映出我国工业原材料未来出厂价格走势,这在一定程度上能为我国宏观经济政策的制定提供重要的参考。这也表明,我国金属期货市场功能近年来已趋于完善。价格发现功能得以较好体现,这是从本文经验研究结果直接得出的一个重要结论。     

Extending the perimeter of reflexive debate on futures research: An open framework

Theoretical and methodological crossover between the field of Futures Studies and environmental research has proven instrumental in understanding environmental long-term dynamics. However, the scale taken today by studies and research on such dynamics creates a new challenge for futurists and environmental scientists, as many set patterns of thought or research in both communities will have to be re-examined. For futurists, it will be necessary to go beyond attempts to standardize Futures Studies methods. The alternative is to promote theoretical and methodological reflexion within the rapidly expanding life-size (and not workshop size) fora of scholarly and policy debate. It will also mean overcoming the regime of metonymical hustle whereby once and again, a new school of thought tries to redefine the entire field and reduce it to its own purpose, concepts and toolkit. This paper proposes an “open” framework as a guide for each study on futures to make explicit the specific and fundamental choices it rests on. It is meant as an invitation to step back and consider new beginnings in a workspace open to the widest possible diversity and scale of approaches, as will be necessary if studies on futures are to rise to the challenges of research for sustainable development.     

进一步规范和发展我国期货市场的思考

目前,我国期货市场逐步进入规范发展的新阶段,处于从量的扩张向质的提升转变的关键时期。本文结合我国期货市场实际,从加快制定《期货法》、构建全国统一的期货市场结算体系、统一商品期货套期保值规则、扩大期货市场的对外开放、推进期货公司业务创新、建设外汇期货市场、加强期货居间人管理等七个方面进行了深入分析,提出了进一步规范和发展我国期货市场的建议。     

Futures studies and the policy sciences

Part of the current evaluation of the work of the Swedish Secretariat for Futures Studies focuses on the practicality and legitimacy of futures studies in relation to the policy sciences. Two crucial issues are focused on, first the justification and relevance of futures studies methodological approaches and their rigorous application to areas of public policy importance and second, the measures by which futures studies can be evaluated in the light of different time frames. Although there are differences between the policy sciences and futures studies approaches which require further analysis, there nevertheless is a symbiotic relationship between the two. The legitimacy of futures studies as a relevant public policy exercise should not be at issue.     

An assessment of futures studies worldwide

This article is based on a recent survey of the futures field. For a report of the survey, see Futures Studies : An International Survey by John McHale and Magda Cordell McHale. The full report on the survey was published by UNITAR, December 1975 and may be purchased from UN Sales Section, Room LX 2300, New York, NY 10017, USA or from Palais de Nations, 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland. The expansion of the subject is shown by the growing number of conferences, publications, secretariats and commissions, and the subject is characterised by a drive for professional recognition and higher standards of methodological rigour. Changes in futures studies include: the shift from linear forecasting towards more normative modes that consider a range of alternative futures; and a new predominance of social science over physical science among practitioners. Whereas futures studies used to have the appearance of a disciplinary enclave it now appears increasingly like a social movement, attracting a degree of involvement similar to that of the civil rights movement, ecology, or consumerism.     

Gender in futures: A study of gender and feminist papers published in Futures, 1969-2009

This paper reviews and discusses papers related to women's studies, gender or feminist perspectives, published in the scientific journal Futures. The aim is to provide new understandings and remapping of futures studies by capturing how gender is created and understood in this field. The gender/feminist criticism of futures studies mainly relates to the field being male-dominated and male biased, which means that the future is seen as already colonised by men. When synthesising the insights from all 78 papers focusing on futures studies and feminism, gender or women, four conclusions are especially striking: (1) Women and non-Westerners are generally excluded from professional futures studies activities and so are feminist issues or issues of particular relevance for women. (2) Futures studies usually make no attempts to reveal underlying assumptions, i.e. often lack a critical and reflexive perspective, which is needed in order to add a critical feminist perspective and envision feminist futures. (3) Feminist futures are needed as a contrast to hegemonic male and Western technology-orientated futures. Feminist futures are diverse, but focus the well-being of all humans. (4) Futures studies often view women as victims, rather than as drivers for change, which means that their alternative futures are often ignored.     

上海金属期货市场的非线性波动特征研究

期货市场是一个典型的非线性动力系统,通过对上海期货交易所(SHFE)的铜、铝期货合约进行非线性波动特征检验,采用基于GED(广义误差分布)的GARCH族模型考察期货收益率的ARCH效应、杠杆效应,并用R/S分析法检验期货收益率和波动率的长期记忆性,得到的实证结果表明:铜、铝期货价格波动有明显的集丛性,铜期货收益率波动没有"杠杆效应",而对铝期货来说,"利好"对条件方差的冲击大于"利空"的冲击.R/S分析结果显示:铜、铝期货收益率均呈现长期记忆性,铜期货有一个约43个日历月的非周期循环,而铝期货并没有明显的非周期循环.更重要的是,实证结果表明期货收益波动率有明显的长期记忆性,因此,在对期货市场波动率建模时应充分考虑这一点.     

A vision of futures studies

The article looks at futures studies from the point of view of the author who has spent over 30 years in the field, with special reference to the World Futures Studies Federation. It suggests that visions are essential for conducting futures studies and education in futures studies is vital for preparing future oriented new generations. The author points out that around the world women are developing silent alternatives to the present societies geared to conflict and violence; this may lead to non-violent changes of which many are not aware. Futures studies will also benefit from examining futures of cultures as we seem to be developing a new culture of peace.     

Foresight defined as a component of Strategic Management

This paper explores basic theoretical affinities between Foresight and Futures and Strategic Management, arguing that at this point in its development, Foresight can best be understood and deployed as an explicitly managerial discipline.The growth of Foresight and Futures Studies as a discipline has been less robust than the internal logic of the field would predict, potentially indicating an opportunity for theoretical renewal. Foresight is often justified on managerial grounds, with the argument that a discipline is needed to guide decision-making in a technologically aggressive, post-industrial society. Some within Foresight and Futures Studies have argued for the active development of alternatives to these managerial justifications. However, the links between Strategic Management and Futures Studies are robust and the embrace of cross-disciplinary dialogue has proven invigorating in some other disciplines. An evaluation of the goals and logic of Foresight from the standpoint of mainstream Strategic Management gives a novel perspective on the field, highlighting its importance to information processing. Finally, Foresight speaks to well-established normative problems with short-term biases in managerial contexts. For the purposes of this article, the terms “Foresight” and “Futures Studies” are used interchangeably to refer to the general study of futures.     

Intraday Empirical Regularities in Interest Rate and Equity Index Futures Markets, and the Effect of Macroeconomic Announcements

This paper focuses on the intraday behaviour of returns, volatility, volume and price reversals for the Short Sterling interest rate and FTSE100 stock index futures contracts traded on the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE). It also examines the effect of scheduled macroeconomic announcements and interest rate changes on the intraday behaviour of the variables of interest. We find clear differences and similarities with US studies and between the interest rate and equity contracts, which have important theoretical implications. This new evidence helps discriminate between the theories seeking to explain these intraday patterns.