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Research seminar

Co-creating futures

Increasing Strategic Foresight's policy capacity to enhance collective intelligence and participation for effective policymaking

Add to calendar 2024-04-24 13:30 2024-04-24 15:00 Europe/Rome Co-creating futures Via Zoom YYYY-MM-DD
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When

24 April 2024

13:30 - 15:00 CEST

Where

Via Zoom

In this seminar organised by the Crisis of Experts Knowledge and Authority Interdisciplinary Research Cluster, Dr Gaia Taffoni (Teaching Associate, STG) and Dr Laura De Vito (UWE Bristol) will talk about the challenges and opportunities of using Strategic Foresight for evidence-based policymaking.

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.  

Please fill in the registration form to receive a Zoom link.

Scientific Organiser(s):

Gaby Umbach

Speaker(s):

Dr Gaia Taffoni

Dr Laura De Vito (University of the West of England)

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