The world is moving into uncharted territory. The Covid-19 pandemic, climate crisis and technological disruptions will only contribute to the uncertainty and complexity of future socio-economic, environmental and geo-political challenges. Futures studies approaches and methodologies provide an effective toolkit for developing more flexible and resilient plans and policies to better deal with such complexity and uncertainty.
 
Integrating deeper future approaches into strategic planning and policy processes can support critical information and intelligence gathering, account for different cultural and worldviews, introduce creativity to empirical findings, support implementation and create new capabilities through collaboration. This policy brief provides an overview of futures studies approaches and methodologies and discusses the advantages of integrating futures studies into strategic planning and policy processes.