Amidst a deepening sense of uncertainty and polycrisis, how do international organizations (IOs) relate to the future? This article explores the politics of speculative foresight as a pervasive but sparsely researched and undertheorized form of future-oriented expertise in international institutions that taps into eclectic knowledge genres – such as art and literature, management philosophy, geopolitics, and esotericism. First, I examine how foresight is created and validated as a bundle of epistemic practice in contemporary IOs. As a way of knowing, I find that foresight is authorized through claims to innovation, imagination, pluralism, and methodological correctness, challenging established understandings of IO expertise as based on bureaucratic rationality and scientific objectivity. Moreover, I argue that foresight differs from more well-researched future-oriented practices, like risk technologies, forecasting, and anticipatory modeling, by imagining the future as contingent, plural, and unknowable. In a second genealogical move, I illustrate how this specific rendering of the future was made possible historically through the establishment of futures studies as an activist, utopian, and aesthetic counter-project to ‘scientific’ Cold War futurology. The article mobilizes performative thinking in social theory and STS and builds on a transversal analysis of IO documents, digital platforms and archives, futurist writings, and historical literature.

Telemedicine is increasingly playing a vital role in European health systems, offering great potential for improving healthcare access and outcomes. Funded between September 2022 and December 2024, the Joint Action ‘Strengthening eHealth including telemedicine and remote monitoring for health care systems for CANcer prevention and care’ (eCAN JA) provided evidence-base for person-centred implementation of telemedicine services among cancer patients in the European Union (EU). Through a mixed-method approach, this foresight study gathered insights from key decision-makers in 14 EU Member States and eight cancer patient associations via two surveys and a joint workshop, conducted within the Sustainability Work Package (WP4) of the eCAN JA. Our results show that EU Member States and cancer patients view telemedicine as a useful and complementary tool, however, not as a replacement for in-person services for cancer care. The policy recommendations from our study can be summarised as follows: (i) develop legal frameworks to complement in-person care with telemedicine; (ii) improve digital literacy and information technology infrastructure while ensuring privacy and health equity; and (iii) engage patients in the co-design of telemedicine services. Implementing these recommendations will enhance the integration of telemedicine into cancer care in Europe.

The escalating complexity of global migration patterns renders evident the limitation of traditional reactive governance approaches and the urgent need for anticipatory and forward-thinking strategies. This Special Collection, “Anticipatory Methods in Migration Policy: Forecasting, Foresight, and Other Forward-Looking Methods in Migration Policymaking,” groups scholarly works and practitioners’ contributions dedicated to the state-of-the-art of anticipatory approaches. It showcases significant methodological evolutions, highlighting innovations from advanced quantitative forecasting using Machine Learning to predict displacement, irregular border crossings, and asylum trends, to rich, in-depth insights generated through qualitative foresight, participatory scenario building, and hybrid methodologies that integrate diverse knowledge forms. The contributions collectively emphasize the power of methodological pluralism, address a spectrum of migration drivers, including conflict and climate change, and critically examine the opportunities, ethical imperatives, and governance challenges associated with novel data sources, such as mobile phone data. By focusing on translating predictive insights and foresight into actionable policies and humanitarian action, this collection aims to advance both academic discourse and provide tangible guidance for policymakers and practitioners. It underscores the importance of navigating inherent uncertainties and strengthening ethical frameworks to ensure that innovations in anticipatory migration policy enhance preparedness, resource allocation, and uphold human dignity in an era of increasing global migration.

Embracing the potential of foresight in migration policy, North Macedonia has embarked on a ground-breaking journey to institutionalize anticipatory governance through extensive capacity-building activities, imparting foresight methods to stakeholders responsible for shaping migration policies. This research provides a comprehensive overview, detailing the initiative’s origins, alignment with the Resolution on Migration Policy 2021–2025, and the accompanying Action Plan. The study assesses the impact and potential of the Anticipatory Governance in Migration in North Macedonia when fully integrated with the action plan, which focuses on data-based management that oversees the migration policy resolution and the migration policy milieu. Through a comprehensive analysis of the foresight interventions, training programs, and stakeholder engagements, this study unveils the potential impact of forward-looking planning on North Macedonia’s migration policy landscape. The conclusion and recommendations have broader significance, extending beyond North Macedonia to serve as a model for other countries confronting migration challenges in our rapidly changing world.

Rapid pace of change and increasing complexity in today’s world demand innovative approaches to product development. Foresight methods enable the anticipation of future scenarios and the derivation of product properties. However, current approaches lack mechanisms to continuously align product development with evolving environment and customer requirements, often resulting in late changes and high costs. Early detection of deviations is needed. This paper presents an approach for continuous monitoring, bridging strategic foresight and the product engineering process (PEP). By analyzing prior work and literature, a process model was developed to identify tipping points where product adaptations are necessary using indications and indicators. Initial evaluation through a case study using coffee machines showed the approach’s usability but improvement potential was also identified.

Using foresight methods such as scenarios, possible futures can be described and anticipated. Needs and requirements as well as product properties can be derived from that, which is necessary to plan successful products for future customers. Changes that occur in the future development can be identified with monitoring and the expected future can be adjusted. A consistent understanding of the use of monitoring for the product engineering process does not exist and is developed in this paper. Thereby, monitoring is considered in the context of validation and located in iPeM.

As societies become more concerned with their impacts on future generations, the question of how to translate that concern into greater consideration in contemporary decision-making is coming to the fore. Despite growing societal acceptance of the ethics of obligations to the future – as reflected in record-high number of future-sensitive constitutions and international treaties – present generations’ promises to future generations remain unfulfilled. This article explains why and offers an alternative approach to future-proofing. After providing a systematic account of the multiple efforts at aligning the actions of decision-makers with the interests of future generations, it argues that achieving the inclusion of future generations’ interests in contemporary policymaking requires more than their legal codification and the establishment of new and typically scattered institutions, mechanisms and procedures. It rather calls for a more holistic, future-orientated and proactive approach by all public authorities. These must increasingly be expected to create the conditions not only for policymakers to consider the temporal dimension of their decisions, but also for all stakeholders – including new dedicated institutions – to hold present people accountable to currently non-existent future generations. To do so beyond the environment and climate space is a matter of urgency. This is the spirit animating this Special Issue devoted to long-term risks and future generations: to nurture a more imaginative theorisation and operationalisation of the recognition of future generations’ interests in contemporary policymaking beyond today’s institutional and conceptual models.

In 1980, Belgian Plan Commissioner Robert Maldague clandestinely circulated a document called The Impossible Scenario, thereby reshaping planning practices in Belgium amidst a widely perceived moment of crisis. Using archival records and oral histories, this article traces how reformers within the (now federal) Belgian Planning Bureau combined foresight scenarios and macroeconomic modeling in The Impossible Scenario. It explains the use of foresight scenarios through the Planning Bureau’s aim of restoring its capacity to intervene in Belgian policymaking. The article then highlights the broader political meaning of this epistemic transformation: the reconfiguration of planning infrastructures in Belgium—and, more broadly, in Europe—from instruments of democratic economic coordination to tools of market governance. Examining this previously underexplored Belgian case thereby reveals the neoliberalized and neoliberalizing character of Western planning infrastructures in the early 1980s.

In order to humanize forecasting, communities have been proposed to activate and enlarge a collective ability of foresight. To better understand how communities relate to collective foresight abilities, this article untangles its critical modes, roles and social media involved. Based on a fine-grained analysis of 10 community practices, we uncovered the abilities of capturing, conceiving and designing foresights enacted in the distinct modes of creative, user and strategic communities. Discoveries included the novel abilities of conceiving foresights, a new groundbreaker role for strategic designers and specific activities of social media listening with regard to future interests. Grounded on the prime findings, we propose a framework with propositions that shape further theory development on community abilities of designing foresights. Further research directions are outlined.

Mobile containers are a keystone human innovation. Ethnographic data indicate that all human groups use containers such as bags, quivers and baskets, ensuring that individuals have important resources at the ready and are prepared for opportunities and threats before they materialize. Although there is speculation surrounding the invention of carrying devices, the current hard archaeological evidence only reaches back some 100,000 years. The dearth of ancient evidence may reflect not only taphonomic processes, but also a lack of attention to these devices. To begin investigating the origins of carrying devices we focus on exploring the basic cognitive processes involved in mobile container use and report an initial study on young children's understanding and deployment of such devices. We gave 3- to 7-year-old children (N = 106) the opportunity to spontaneously identify and use a basket to increase their own carrying capacity and thereby obtain more resources in the future. Performance improved linearly with age, as did the likelihood of recognizing that adults use mobile carrying devices to increase carrying capacity. We argue that the evolutionary and developmental origins of mobile containers reflect foundational cognitive processes that enable humans to think about their own limits and compensate for them.

As time-to-market is getting shorter, customer needs have to be identified as early as possible in product development. Correctly applied, corporate foresight can give a glimpse into the future to anticipate such needs and thus gain a competitive advantage. A support tool to choose the appropriate method of foresight is not available yet. Thus, a literature study on foresight methods in industry is performed and a novel decision support tool is proposed which avoids high entrepreneurial risks. Based on the findings, potentials for future work are identified for different types of methods.