40 Top Futures Research Questions

Since the beginning of my studies on Strategic Foresight, I’ve been compiling a list of mind-challenging questions that can be raised as research topics and may be addressed by the students of foresight or futures studies at MA and PhD levels.

Please remember that a number of these questions have been already answered by the futurists in futures journals and books, but given the evolving nature of the field; they may be reconsidered from new points of view. Here is a sorted list of such questions:

1. What will be the future of futures studies?
2. How should futurists be advocates to the public?
3. How futures research can be translated into concrete actions?
4. How can people use popular futures methods?
5. How does the new media influence people and how they assimilate new information into their mental model of the future?
6. What percentage of different media types consumed might change someone’s view of the future?
7. How can futurists improve people’s image of the futures field?
8. How can futures studies draw upon scientific and technological developments?
9. How can futurists open dialogue beyond the social sciences and the humanities to include artists, policy makers and scientists?
10. How can futures thinking be differentiated from futures research?
11. How should futurists handle public critiques of futures studies?
12. What professional values do the futurists hold and who is monitoring them?
13. What is the futurists’ code of practice?
14. How will the next generation learn and practice foresight?
15. What will be the future of futures studies in higher education?
16. How will futures studies should grow beyond its conventional limits?
17. How can futures studies be defended as an independent academic field of study?
18. How can futures studies relate to other fields of learning?
19. How can futures studies and similar fields, such as strategic planning, be integrated and differentiated?
20. When should a futurist serve as a strategist or vice versa?
21. How can futures studies evolve syntactically and semantically in the coming years?
22. Does futures studies have independent theoretical foundation or does it need such a foundation essentially?
23. What does professionalism mean among the futurist’s community?
24. What does it mean to be a professional futurist?
25. What are the essential qualities of a professional futurist?
26. What levels of knowledge and mastery with qualitative and quantitative tools and methods of Futures Studies are expected from a professional futurist?
27. Do the futurists need a certificate like practitioners of other fields of study to offer their services in a reliable manner?
28. What’s the real value of a futurist certificate?
29. How can a certificate provide legitimacy for the futurists?
30. How could the futurists be certified and which organizations could undertake certification?
31. How can applied futurists can be differentiated in terms of their academic knowledge, practical experience, nature of business, authoritative role, accomplishments, and contributions they have made to the field?
32. How can futurists improve the prospects for the field they are working in?
33. How can futurists succeed to use knowledge for the improvement of their field of study?
34. How can futurists develop the capacity of their field of study in addressing world’s important challenges?
35. How can the futures field emerge beyond colonized modernist-Western classifications of knowledge?
36. How successful has futures studies been in influencing policy and action, in placing new issues on the social agenda and in furthering the human quest for sustainability?
37. How can current futures studies impact decisions taken in favor of future generations or against them and how the conscious and unconscious image of the future guides the nations?
38. How can futurists’ worldviews and interests shape the future they predict or the alternative scenarios they posit?
39. How should the results of futurists’ investigations be interpreted by the professionals of other fields of studies?
40. How should the futurists communities plan and invest on learning from the future?

Any comment or contribution to update the list and address its questions is highly appreciated.

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Alireza Hejazi is the founding editor of Futures Discovery website (http://www.futuresdiscovery.com/). He is currently an MA student of Strategic Foresight at Regent University School of Global Leadership & Entrepreneurship.