Futures studies is an interdisciplinary field that studies today's changes (and continuities) and their impact on tomorrow's reality. It includes attempts to analyze the sources, patterns, and causes of change and stability in order to develop foresight and to map alternative futures. The subjects and methods of futures studies include possible, probable, and desirable variations or alternative transformations of the present, both social and "natural" (i.e. independent of human impact). A broad field of inquiry, futures studies explores and represents what the present could become from multiple interdisciplinary perspectives.
Futures studies takes as one of its important attributes (epistemological starting points) the on-going effort to analyze images of the future. This effort includes collecting quantitative and qualitative data about the possibility, probability, and desirability of change. The plurality of the term "futures" in futures studies denotes the rich variety of images of the future (alternative futures), including the subset of preferable futures (normative futures), that can be studied.
Futures studies is often summarized as being concerned with "three P's and a W," or possible, probable, and preferable futures, plus wildcards, which are low probability but high impact events, should they occur. Thus estimates of probability are involved with two of the four central concerns of foresight professionals (discerning and classifying both probable and wildcard events), while considering the range of possible futures, recognizing the plurality of existing images of the future (alternative futures), characterizing and attempting to resolve normative disagreements on the future, and envisioning and creating preferred futures are other major areas of scholarship. Most estimates of probability in futures studies are normative and qualitative, though significant progress on statistical and quantitative methods (technology and information growth curves, cliometrics, predictive psychology, prediction markets, etc.) has been made in recent decades.
Like historical studies that try to explain what happened in the past and why, the efforts of futures studies try to understand the latent potential of the present. This requires the development of theories of present conditions and how conditions might change. For this task, futures studies, as it is generally undertaken, uses a wide range of theoretical models and practical methods, many of which come from other academic disciplines (including economics, sociology, geography, history, engineering, mathematics, psychology, technology, tourism, physics, biology, astronomy, and theology).
Two factors usually distinguish futures studies from the research conducted by these other disciplines (although all disciplines overlap, to differing degrees):
The following discussion, in presenting the history of futures studies and the work of its many branches, conveys futures studies as emergent, cross-cutting and diverse.

futures studies often examines not only possible but also probable, preferable, and wildcard futures
futures studies typically attempts to gain a holistic or systemic view based on insights from a range of different disciplines. Terminology
The scholars forecasting the relative wealth of nations or blocs in a generation's time may well be classified as futurists. However, futures studies would not generally include the work of economists who forecast movements of interest rates over the next business cycle. The discipline excludes those who make future predictions through supernatural means, as well as people who attempt to forecast the short-term or readily foreseeable future.

Scope
As of 2003, over 40 tertiary education establishments around the world were delivering one or more courses in futures studies. The World Futures Studies Federation has a comprehensive survey of global futures programs and courses. The Acceleration Studies Foundation maintains an annotated list of primary and secondary graduate futures studies programs.

Education
Some intellectual foundations of futures studies appeared in the mid-19th century. In 1997, Wendell Bell suggested that Comte's discussion of the metapatterns of social change presages futures studies as a scholarly dialogue.

History

North America
A number of concepts, tools and methods for recognizing probable, possible and preferable futures and wildcards exist.

Key concepts
Some aspects of the future, such as celestial mechanics, have been discovered empirically or by scientific theory to be highly predictable in a quantitative and statistical sense (i.e., certain system behaviors deriving from laws and observed regularities of physics, chemistry, and biology, or from presently less formalized observations in sociology, psychology and technological development). At present these remain a special minority of physical events. At the same time, growth in chaos theory, nonlinear science and evolutionary theory has allowed us to describe many physical systems as essentially unpredictable in their specific future state. Nevertheless a probability distribution in outcomes may frequently be described for such systems, and particular probabilistic system descriptions may be shown to hold over a wide range of time and conditions.
Not surprisingly, the tension between predictability and unpredictability is a source of controversy and conflict among futures scholars and practitioners. Some argue that it is not the province of futures studies to engage in prediction. Others seek to describe complex systems in a language that includes formal and informal probability and prediction, in balance with possible and preferable futures.
As an example, consider the process of electing the president of the United States. At a one level we observe that any U.S. citizen over 35 may run for president, so this process may appear too unconstrained for useful prediction. Yet further investigation demonstrates that only certain public individuals (current and former presidents and vice presidents, senators, state governors, popular military commanders, mayors of very large cities, etc.) receive the appropriate "social credentials" that are historical prerequisites for election. Thus with a minimum of effort at formulating the problem for statistical prediction, a much reduced pool of candidates can be described, improving our probabilistic foresight. Applying further statistical intelligence to this problem, we can observe that in certain election prediction markets such as the Iowa Electronic Markets, reliable forecasts have been generated over long spans of time and conditions, with results superior to individual experts or polls. Such markets, which may be operated publicly or as an internal market, are just one of several promising frontiers in predictive futures research.

Probability and predictability
Futures studies uses scenarios - alternative possible futures - as an important tool. To some extent, people can determine what they consider probable or desirable using qualitative and quantitative methods. By looking at a variety of possibilities one comes closer to shaping the future, rather than merely predicting it. Shaping alternative futures starts by establishing a number of scenarios. Setting up scenarios takes place as a process with many stages. One of those stages involves the study of trends. A trend persists long-term and long-range; it affects many societal groups, grows slowly and appears to have a profound basis. In contrast, a fad operates the short term, shows the vagaries of fashion, affects particular societal groups, and spreads quickly but superficially.

Shaping alternative futures
Trends come in different sizes. A mega-trend extends over many generations, and in cases of climate, mega-trends can cover periods prior to human existence. They describe complex interactions between many factors. The increase in population from the palaeolithic period to the present provides an example of a mega-trend.

Mega-trends
Possible new trends grow from innovations, projects, beliefs or actions that have the potential to grow and eventually go mainstream in the future (for example: just a few years ago, alternative medicine remained truly "alternative". Now it has links with big business and has achieved a degree of respectability in some circles and even in the marketplace).

Potential trends
Very often, trends relate to one another the same way in which a tree-trunk relate to branches and twigs. For example, a well-documented movement toward equality between men and women might represent a branch trend. The trend toward a minimizing differences in the relationship between the salaries of men and women in the Western world could form a twig on that branch.

Branching trends
When does a potential trend gain acceptance as a bona fide trend? When it gets enough confirmation in the various media, surveys or questionnaires to show it has an increasingly accepted value, behavior or technology. Trends can also gain confirmation by the existence of other trends perceived as springing from the same branch. Some commentators claim that when 15% to 25% of a given population integrates an innovation, project, belief or action into their daily life then a trend becomes "mainstream".

Life-cycle of a trend
In futures research "weak signals" may be understood as advanced, noisy and socially situated indicators of change in trends and systems that constitute raw informational material for enabling anticipatory action. There have been, however, confusement about the definition of weak signal by various researchers and consultants. Sometimes it is referred as future oriented information, sometimes more like emerging issues. Elina Hiltunen (2007), in her new concept the future sign has tried to clarify the confusion about the weak signal definitions, by combining signal, issue and interpretation to the future sign, which more holistically describes the change (link to the article about the Future sign.
There are some tools for utilizing weak signals in organizational environment. One tool is called Strategy Signals, which aims to collect weak signals inside of organization. The tool is developed by Finnish company called Fountain Park.
Another tool for using weak signals in organizations is called the Futures Windows, in which images of weak signals are shown in organization facilities. All the employees in the organization can send their images about weak signals to this tool. The purpose of that tool is to disseminate weak signals in organizations easily and increase futures thinking and innovating in the organization. Link to the tool here
"Wild cards" refer to low-probability and high-impact events. This concept may be embedded in standard foresight projects and introduced into anticipatory decision-making activity in order to increase the ability of social groups adapt to surprises arising in turbulent business environments. Such sudden and unique incidents might constitute turning points in the evolution of a certain trend or system. Wild cards may or may not be announced by weak signals, which are incomplete and fragmented data from which relevant foresight information might be inferred. Sometimes, mistakenly, wild cards and weak signals are considered as synonyms, which they are not Article by Hiltunen describing the differences of weak signals and wild cards.

Weak signals, the future sign and wild cards

"Any useful idea about the future should appear to be ridiculous." (Jim Dator)
"Take hold of the future or the future will take hold of you." (Patrick Dixon)
"The future is clear to me. What I don't understand is the present." (Gerhard Kocher)
"There are no future facts." (Fred Polak)
"A part of our future appears to be evolutionary and unpredictable, and another part looks developmental and predictable. Our challenge is to invent the first and discover the second." (John Smart)
"The problem with the future is that it keeps becoming the present." (Calvin) Other suggestions for thinking about the future
Practitioners of the discipline previously concentrated on extrapolating present technological, economic or social trends, or on attempting to predict future trends, but more recently they have started to examine social systems and uncertainties and to build scenarios. Apart from extrapolation and scenarios, many dozens of methods and techniques have uses in futures research (see below).
Futures Studies also includes normative or preferred futures, but a major contribution involves connecting both extrapolated (exploratory) and normative research to help individuals and organisations to build better social futures amid a (presumed) landscape of shifting social changes. Practitioners use varying proportions of inspiration and research. Futures studies, although typically informed by science, does not strictly utilize the scientific method in the sense of repeatable experiments creating consensus assertions, lacking the ability to control or repeat the time variable. However, futurists do apply many scientific techniques. Some historians project patterns observed in past civilizations upon present-day society to anticipate what will happen in the future. Oswald Spengler's "Decline of the West" argued, for instance, that western society, like imperial Rome, had reached a stage of cultural maturity that inexorably led to decline.

Methodologies
Several authors have become recognized as futurists. They research trends (particularly in technology) and write accounts of their observations, conclusions, and predictions. In earlier eras, many of the futurists were attached to academic institutions. For example John McHale the futurist who wrote the book The Future of the Future, and published a Futures Directory, directed his own Centre For Integrative Studies which was a Think Tank within the university setting. Other early era futurists followed a cycle of publishing their conclusions and then beginning research on the next book. More recently they have started consulting groups or earn money as speakers. Alvin Toffler, John Naisbitt and Patrick Dixon exemplify this class.
Many business gurus present themselves as pragmatic futurists rather than as theoretical futurists. One prominent international "business futurist", Frank Feather, coined the phrase "Thinking Globally, Acting Locally" in 1979.
Some futurists share features in common with the writers of science fiction, and indeed some science-fiction writers, such as Arthur C. Clarke, have acquired a certain reputation as futurists. Some writers, though, show less interest in technological or social developments and use the future only as a backdrop to their stories. For example, in the introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin wrote of prediction as the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurists, not of writers: "a novelist's business is lying".

Practitioners

Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies [1]
Futures Studies Department, Corvinus University of Budapest
Department of Futures Studies, University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India Research centers

Main article: Futures techniques Futures techniques
Sample predicted futures, as of 2003, range from predicted ecological catastrophes, through a utopian future where the poorest human being lives in what present-day observers would regard as wealth and comfort, through the transformation of humanity into a posthuman life-form, to the destruction of all life on Earth in, say, a nanotechnological disaster.
Futurists have a decidedly mixed reputation and a patchy track record at successful prediction. For reasons of convenience, they often extrapolate present technical and societal trends and assume they will develop at the same rate into the future; but technical progress and social upheavals, in reality, take place in fits and starts and in different areas at different rates.
Many 1950s futurists predicted commonplace space tourism by the year 2000, but ignored the possibilities of ubiquitous, cheap computers, while Marxist expectations of utopia have failed to materialise to date. On the other hand, many forecasts have portrayed the future with some degree of accuracy. Current futurists often present multiple scenarios that help their audience envision what "may" occur instead of merely "predicting the future". They claim that understanding potential scenarios helps individuals and organizations prepare with flexibility.
Many corporations use futurists as part of their risk management strategy, to help identify so-called wild cards - low probability, potentially high-impact risks. Every successful and unsuccessful business engages in futuring - for example in research and development, innovation and market research, anticipating competitor behavior and so on.

Alternative futures forecasting
A long-running tradition in various cultures, and especially in the media, involves various spokespersons making predictions for the upcoming year at the beginning of the year. These predictions sometimes base themselves on current trends in culture (music, movies, fashion, politics); sometimes they make hopeful guesses as to what major events might take place over the course of the next year.
Some of these predictions come true as the year unfolds, though many fail. When predicted events fail to take place, the authors of the predictions often state that misinterpretation of the "signs" and portents may explain the failure of the prediction.
Marketers have increasingly started to embrace future studies, in an effort to benefit from an increasingly competitive marketplace with fast production cycles, using such techniques as trendspotting as popularized by Faith Popcorn.

Near-term predictions
Education in the field of futures studies has taken place for some time. Beginning in the United States of America in the 1960s, it has since developed in many different countries. Futures education can encourage the use of concepts, tools and processes that allow students to think long-term, consequentially, and imaginatively. It generally helps students to:
Thorough documentation of the history of futures education exists, for example in the work of Richard A. Slaughter (2004).

conceptualise more just and sustainable human and planetary futures
develop knowledge and skills in exploring probable and preferred futures
understand the dynamics and influence that human, social and ecological systems have on alternative futures
conscientize responsibility and action on the part of students toward creating better futures. Futures education

Application of foresight to specific fields
Future studies within the context of fashion, design and retail with Fashion being one of the most important areas of trend forecasting. The industry typically works 18 months ahead of the current selling season. Large retailers look at the obvious impact of everything from the weather forecast to fashion runway for their fast fashion ranges. Consumer behaviour and statistics from companies such as Datamonitor [2] for a longer forecast is also very important. There is a huge industry surrounding fashion and design futures which include magazines like Viewpoint and online information portals like mpdclick.com, wgsn.com and PSFK. The Future Laboratory a UK based futures organisation is one of the most important names as is the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies in Denmark. Mpdclick is an online futures information service specifically for the fashion Industry. The fashion and Design industries most respected Futurologists include Martin Raymond of the Future Laboratory, [3] Fiona Jenvey of Mpdclick [4] and David Shah the publisher of Viewpoint magazine.
In the context commercial design trend forecasting fulfils a vital role. When the wheel was invented 5,500 years ago, its use in moving heavy objects became a 'trend.' An invention in itself is a prediction. The wheel quickly progressed to be a simple mode of human transport, which was predicted by the non-inventor of the car, Henry Ford. Ford himself is quoted (by some anonymous source) as saying "If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse," which proves the point that a prediction is a vital tool in both inventiveness and future consumption and human behaviour. To answer the existing point, the creative process cannot exist without trend forecasting, as good commercial design necessitates some form of basic anthropology in order to access user needs.
Though artists and conceptual designers may feel that consumer trends are a barrier to creativity. Many of these 'Starchitects' and 'Startists' start micro trends that develop as the concept becomes more commercialised, but do not follow trends themselves. The same is true of certain fashion designers like Missoni, who work with their own trade mark aesthetic. Damian Hirst, however, has challenged the boundaries between art and popular culture in 'For the Love of God' – the centerpiece for his Beyond Belief exhibition at new gallery White Cube 3, Hoxton Square, London. Here, Hirst has blatantly created something which is not so much art, as a piece of decadent bling designed for commercial sale to the celebrity chavtocracy (£15m for the diamonds, £50m for the object). In this respect, Hirst, unusually as an artist, has followed a trend in order to commercialise his work.
Trend intelligence for design is about well researched, documented and well thought out information based on the development of an existing idea. Think again of the wheel being a prelude to the carriage and later the car. There are many trend companies out there, particularly in fashion, peddling their own ideas rather than solid trend information. Unfortunately for the trend industry these companies give others a bad name.

Fashion and design
See also: Acceleration Studies Foundation's annotated list of 10 primary and 60+ secondary graduate futures studies programs.

Australia: Australian Catholic University
Australia: Swinburne University of Technology
Argentina: Universidad Nacional de La Plata Academic programs

Main article: Futurology Futurists and foresight thought leaders

The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
Bold New World
Brave New World
The Communist Manifesto
Future Frequencies
Future Primitive
Future Shock
Futurewise
Great Transition: The Promise and Lure of the Times Ahead
Limits to Growth
Macroshift
Our Final Hour
Phoenix: A Tale of the Future
The Revenge of Gaia
The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology
The Skeptical Environmentalist
The Third Wave (book), Alvin Toffler
Visions of the Future in the Last Century
Analyzing and Modeling Global Development Books

Five Regions of the Future Periodicals and Monographs

Acceleration Studies Foundation
Applied Foresight Network
Association of Professional Futurists
Australian Futures Foundation
Club of Amsterdam
Club of Rome
Global Business Network
Global Scenario Group
Hudson Institute
International Institute of Forecasters
Long Now Foundation
Millennium Project
NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts
RAND Corporation
Shaping Tomorrow
School of Futures Studies and Planning
Swedish Morphological Society
Tellus Institute
The Arlington Institute
UK Futures Analysts Network
World Future Society
World Futures Studies Federation See also