The ageing of Europe: Demographic scenarios of Europe's futures

This paper explores the demographic futures of Europe by presenting two scenarios. The ‘silver century’ scenario is based on the continuation of current demographic trends and policies. In this scenario, Europe's population will continue to age and immigration will be limited. As a result younger people will increasingly tend to concentrate in urban areas while the retirees, who are able, will settle in suburban and rural spaces. In the ‘open borders’ scenario, the EU and most of the member states will introduce an open and actively promoted immigration policy. Most immigrants will concentrate in large metropolitan areas. At the same time there will also be some countries and regions with very limited immigration from abroad. At the local scale immigration will contribute to social and spatial segregation. Hence, without the regulation or at least management of types and destinations of immigration, demographic imbalances will not be addressed at the regional level. Furthermore while the freedom of movement may have some macro-economic benefits and address population imbalances in some (mainly metropolitan) areas, pre-existent trends undermining both socio-economic cohesion and sustainable patterns of development are unlikely to be resolved.     

The pedagogy of planning: Defining sufficient futures

This essay questions expertise about the future and offers an assessment of the methods used and questions addressed by planners as they determine the inputs for setting their goals. It outlines, challenges and redefines several planning methods and suggests a more generous framework through which to focus thought about the future.     

Alternative futures: AmI scenarios and Minority Report

In the last few decades, scenarios have provided a way of analysing the implications of alternative futures, especially as they might be impacted by new technologies. This has been no less true of ambient intelligence (AmI), which may be embedded everywhere in the not so distant future. Most of the scenarios developed by AmI enthusiasts have been rather ‘sunny’, showing how the new technologies promise to make our lives more efficient, enjoyable, productive, enriching. A European project, called Safeguards in a World of Ambient Intelligence (SWAMI), deliberately developed ‘dark scenarios’ to highlight the threats to privacy, identity, trust, security and inclusiveness posed by the new technologies. The SWAMI consortium also developed a methodological structure for deconstructing and analysing the dark scenarios. This paper takes that approach a step further by applying it to a cultural artefact, partly to test the validity, utility, applicability of the SWAMI methodology to a scenario not constructed by the consortium and partly to show how some cultural artefacts can be regarded as scenarios in their own right as well as warnings about future technologies. The cultural artefact chosen here was the Steven Spielberg film Minority Report, because it features so many AmI technologies and draws attention to the issues that have been the focus of the SWAMI project.     

Choosing diverse sets of plausible scenarios in multidimensional exploratory futures techniques

Morphological analysis allows any number of dimensions to be retained when framing future conditions, and techniques within morphological analysis determine which combinations of those dimensions represent plausible futures. However, even a relatively low number of dimensions in future conditions can lead to hundreds or even thousands of plausible future scenarios. Creating highly diverse but conceivable visions of the future in which to explore decision-making, exploratory futures techniques rely on the selection of a small number of plausible scenarios from the larger set. In this paper we describe a new method for finding maximally diverse sets containing a small number of plausible scenarios from a multi-dimensional morphological analysis. It is based on a mathematical optimization of diversity that is robust to the uncertainty in the framing of future factors and states and in what stakeholders might consider diverse combinations of those factors and states. We also describe implementation of the method as a software tool and its performance in recent exploratory scenario development by CGIAR and partners for regional environmental change, food security and livelihoods.     

Assessment and acceptability of urban futures

Political economy was invented to interpret and regulate the new economic techniques necessary for bringing about the industrial revolution and preserving the wealth of the nation. As an urban society, we now need to invent a social economy as a basis for bringing about a humanistic revolution and restoring the quality of urban living. In this article Mr Gappert argues that, for the formulation of sound urban policies, more attention needs to be given to participation, diversity, investment of social resources in support of parallel alternative systems, and less to indicators, predictability and social control.     

Bounding the future: The use of scenarios in assessing climate change impacts

This paper investigates the contribution of socio-economic scenarios to improve decisions and policies in climate assessments. We specifically looked at adaptation projects in the Dutch Climate changes Spatial Planning programme. Based on the four decision failure criteria neglect of internal information, bounded rationality, insufficient expansion of existing mental models and stickiness and lack of friction of information and knowledge, it was concluded that in these projects, socio-economic scenarios appear to generate useful data, but that their full potential to reduce decision failure is not likely to be exploited. Therefore adaptation options suggested by these studies may not be ‘future-proof’: they may be appropriate in some future societies, but fail in others. We believe similar results would be obtained in other contexts. Possible decision failures are caused by neglecting socio-economic developments, limiting the number of storylines generated by scenario studies to one or two, lack of stakeholder involvement in the scenario development and ignoring discontinuities.     

Social scanning: Improving futures through Web 2.0; or, finally a use for twitter

This article outlines the potential for “social scanning,” the practice of aggregating and analyzing publicly available content created by futurists and shared on blogs and other social software platforms, and explains how it could create value for professional futurists and their clients. The system would take content that is personal but not proprietary, and create new value from it by detecting larger, long-term patterns that individual users might not be aware of. It would create the means to better distribute credit for finding weak signals or emerging trends, and create new forms of professional credit for work that currently remains invisible. It would create goods that are useful to individual practitioners and the profession as a whole. Finally, it would serve as a foundation for collaborative research in a community of practice that is highly distributed.     

Values in futures studies and long-term planning: Two Swedish case studies

The past few years' debate on the devolution of decision making in Swedish urban communities has increased the importance of examining values among planners and the eventual subjects of the plans. This article presents two case studies which show that the discrepancy in values not only complicates the planning process but also raises the need for further research in developing new techniques in delineating individual values.     

Governing the transition to low-carbon futures: A critical survey of energy scenarios for 2050

There is a growing scientific consensus that limiting the increase in global average temperature to around 2 °C above pre-industrial levels is necessary to avoid unacceptable impact on the climate system. This requires that the developed countries’ emissions are radically reduced during the next 40 years. Energy scenario studies provide insights on the societal transitions that might be implied by such low-carbon futures, and in this paper we discuss how a greater attention to different governance and institutional issues can complement future scenario exercises. The analysis is based on a critical review of 20 quantitative and qualitative scenario studies, all of relevance for meeting long-term climate policy objectives. The paper: (a) analyzes some key differences in energy technology mixes and primary energy use patterns across these studies; (b) briefly explores the extent and the nature of the societal challenges and policy responses implied; and (c) discusses a number of important implications for the design and scope of future scenario studies. Our review shows that in previous scenario studies the main attention is typically paid to analyzing the impact of well-defined and uniform policy instruments, while fewer studies factor in the role of institutional change in achieving different energy futures. We therefore point towards a number of strategies of integrating issues of transition governance into future scenario analyses, and argue for a closer synthesis of qualitative and quantitative scenario building.     

Sustainability in the prospective scenarios methods: A case study of scenarios for biodiesel industry in Brazil,for 2030

In order to build prospective scenarios for biodiesel industry in Brazil, with a sustainable perspective, it was necessary to develop a cross-disciplinary work to include Sachs’ dimensions of sustainability into the scenarios method. This meant linking concepts from different disciplines, without transforming it in a new discipline. In order to support the proposition for the new method, a study case is presented, the framework for the biodiesel scenarios in Brazil, by 2030. An in-depth interview was used to test the proposition of having the sustainability dimensions as driving forces. The result was the identification of a critical uncertainty composed of various aspects related the response to climate change and environmental conservation. The scenario storylines that were developed based on the critical uncertainties showed that sustainable options for the future are possible if the mental maps are enlarged to see beyond the business as usual.The results show that the scenarios storylines go through social, environmental and economic aspects, supported by other aspects like the territorial and political. Also it showed that sustainable options are possible if the mental maps are enlarged to see beyond the business as usual.     

Heart of the dragon: Metaphor use in futures thinking in Taiwan

This article explores metaphors in the teaching of futures studies in Taiwan. Metaphors are divided into those that describe current reality and those that describe the future. For instance, the metaphor of the gold fish is used by students to illustrate the short attention span of the people, which attributed to recurring societal crises. A transformative metaphor example is for the library—from a fort that passively awaits worships to fire that actively passes knowledge to people. The article concludes with the benefits of using metaphors in futures thinking.     

Stepping into futures: Exploring the potential of interactive media for participatory scenarios on social-ecological systems

In this paper, we present a strategy for the development of interactive media scenarios to help communicate uncertainties and complexities in coupled human and natural systems. Insights arising from Complex Adaptive Systems theory advocate the need for more adaptive perspectives on natural resources management. For the collaborative exploration of future complexities and uncertainties, participatory scenario development has proven to be a powerful approach. A range of communication strategies with benefits for conveying complexity, however, has not yet been adopted by scenario developers. We present a framework of criteria with which we structurally analyze the benefits of interactive media communication. First, we consider requirements of feasibility, flexibility and stakeholder contributions. Then, we synthesize criteria for the communication of Complex Adaptive Systems. Finally, we set criteria for communicatory clarity and engagement. Using this framework, we review several science communication fields, including landscape visualization, serious gaming and visual analytics. We then develop a strategy for interactive media communication in participatory scenario development, including two work-in-progress examples. This strategy employs mixed media, micro-games and accessible stakeholder contributions in a geo-web context, and is suitable for participatory work in live settings as well as on-line, from a local to a global scale.     

Creating alternative futures through storytelling: A case study from Serbia

This article focuses on the project Storytelling for Peace, Gender Partnership and Cultural Pluralism, initiated in 2009 in Novi Sad, Serbia, with the primary aim of promoting educational strategies which challenge the continuation of the dominator society's status quo and facilitate the emergence of alternative, progressive and socially inclusive futures. Constructive storytelling was chosen as an educational practice that can bring about change, and was used as a tool for the transfer of alternative worldviews because it is indirect, flexible and inexpensive. The main beneficiaries of the project were the students of the University of Novi Sad and teachers and children of Novi Sad primary schools. The project utilised local knowledge and languages to foster peace and partnership-oriented individual and social narratives through the process of alternative story writing and revision of traditional Serbian and European tales. The participants learned to deconstruct master narratives, to understand deep culture and how its underlying myths shape national identity. Alternative stories became a tool to teach critical thinking and promote a diversity of voices.     

Interpreting futures through the multi-level co-evolution of organizational practices

This paper explores the relationship between anticipatory cognitive frameworks and the multi-level co-evolution of practices within organizations, as the conceptualization of organizations in evolutionary terms influences the interpretation and development of futures. The paper begins with an overview of the evolutionary approach in the study of organizations, which is followed by the identification of units of analysis including habits, routines and cognitive frameworks. A conceptualization of the co-evolution of practices at multiple levels is then put forward, focusing on the role played by cognitive frameworks in the interpretation and anticipation of futures. In the process of these developments, three key tensions are identified including a temporal tension, tension between levels and tension with localism.     

Cities of the imagination: Science fiction, urban space, and community engagement in urban planning

Stories, dreams, histories and myths, Michel de Certeau argues, connect people to particular places and makes place concrete and inhabitable. These narratives generate an imaginary, poetic geography that haunts the abstract city of street maps and development plans, and makes it socially meaningful. This paper is concerned with one particular kind of story-telling - science fiction - and its relationship with the city, urban planning, and questions of community engagement. The paper argues that the ‘cities of the imagination’ generated by science fiction and other forms of narrative provide a powerful means of understanding, communicating and enriching the connections to place in urban communities. Moreover, science fiction is often characterised by its ability to explore the future of cities. This gives the genre a fascinating and potentially useful resonance with urban planning as a discourse and set of practices; and, in particular, strategies for engaging communities in the design process and, thus, designing for future social sustainability. These ideas will be tested through a reading of near-future urban spatiality in the cyberpunk stories of William Gibson. The theorisation of the relationship between urban space and narrative in the work of de Certeau and other theorists will be used to help frame this discussion.     

Profutures. The birth of the strategic prospective and futures studies international network for applied methodology

On 30 September and 1 October 1993, the European Commission's Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (PROMPT) organized a meeting, in collaboration with LIPS-CNAM (the Laboratory for Investigation in Prospective and Strategy of the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris), on the theme: ‘Methods and tools in strategic prospective: retrospective and perspectives’. The main outcome of this meeting, which brought together 23 international experts from the strategic prospective-futures studies field at the Ispra campus of the EC's joint Research Centre, was the creation of a new network, devoted to applied methodology, to be known as Profutures.     

上市公司善用期指

2010年4月16日,格林期货金融研究院院长于军礼对上市公司如何利用股指期货,以及这一金融工具对企业投资部门、管理层、股东的影响进行了论述,以下为观点参考。