Co-creating futures

Organised by

• Department of Economics
• Department of History
• Department of Law
• Max Weber Programme for Postdoctoral Studies
• Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies
• Department of Political and Social Sciences
• Florence School of Transnational Governance
• Central Coordination Unit
• Crisis of Expert Knowledge and Authority

The increasing complexity of many contemporary policy challenges presents unprecedented expectations for governments and their ability to make and implement effective policies. This is raising attention to the degree of Policy Capacity of governments. Policy Capacity is generally intended as "the ability of governments to make intelligent choices" and to make appropriate use of knowledge in policymaking. However, we maintain it is also the ability to develop strategies grounded in longer-term perspectives. Strategic Foresight (SF) helps design and shape policies to prepare to withstand shocks, anticipating and adapting to changes. However, as governments work towards embedding SF into their policymaking processes, the empirical evidence suggests that futures literacy gaps remain and that applications are still piecemeal and predominantly limited to agenda settings and policy formulation stages. In this article, we argue that to drive anticipatory governance, it is crucial to increase policymakers' SF capacity to apply SF at all stages of the policy cycle. This includes evaluating policies to draw lessons for future interventions. Considering SF systemically throughout the policymaking cycle makes it possible to strengthen anticipatory governance and use technical expertise and participatory knowledge.  

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