Introduction

Abstract

Foresight is fundamentally about the study of change. Of course, futurists are not the only ones who study change. Scientists study change in physics (the motion of bodies), astronomy (the formation of stars and planets), chemistry (chemical reactions), biology (the evolution of species), and in a whole host of other disciplines. The social sciences also study change at the personal level (psychology), at the group, organizational and societal levels (sociology), and at the cultural level (anthropology). In fact, two disciplines are particularly concerned with change: history studies change in the past; journalism chronicles change in the present. And that is where foresight fits in. Most people think of time as flowing from the past (history), through the present (journalism), and into the future. Therefore, just as historians study the past and journalists the present, so futurists study the future. It is interesting that history is an ancient discipline and journalism has been around a long time. Why don’t we have an academic discipline that studies the future?