Foresight has an especially important role in times of transition and trouble. In times of turbulence foresight arises as a tool for intellectual freedom and enhanced strategic leverage. But foresight itself is always in a continuing process of innovation as it is not detached from the changing environment that engulfs organisations. Taking stock from innovative developments in foresight methodologies and implementation experiences is relevant as new experiments have rapidly accumulated in this new century. Looking ahead calls for a review of new perspectives and recent practice on foresight methodology and on how foresight is embedded in organisations.

This book brings together a sample of real-world cases and of conceptual proposals bridging between practitioners and researchers in the field of futures research. Such an ambition is an increasingly difficult balancing act as the gap between the needs of organisational leaders and the incentives of academics becomes an ever widening gulf due to increasingly specialised and self-absorbed agendas. To further this book’s goals we had the opportunity to assemble an international team of authors coming from a variety of backgrounds to provide their first-hand view from the frontier of new foresight empirical work and theoretical reflection.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Technology Analysis and Strategic Management.