IFA Summer School - Futures Studies and Foresight as an Instrument for Public Engagement in Policy-making for a Complex and Uncertain Future

The first IFA Summer School is a customized training program dedicated to the topic of the International Foresight Academy on Foresight and public Engagement in policy making to acquire and train new skills and at the same time to meet and network with young and experienced colleagues from other locations of the world. One focus of the event is put on the exchange of experience and future activities of our network beyond IFA. In addition, the event will be the first group experience apart from the kick off, working together and establishing long-lasting professional relationships. It will also, at least as a group experience, be a preparation for the work that is going to be continued in the subsequent Academic Seminar in Zurich this year and the follow-up Summer School and Academic Seminar in Latin America in 2014.

The unique conditions we face arise from a variety of sources, including scarce resources, population and external demands, cultural and value differences in policy-making and planning, miscommunication, differences in role expectations, and power struggles between individuals or competing organizations, governments and societies. The Summer School will focus on working through examples (cases) to help evolve the capacity to notice, explore, and make sense of these pressures and changes. One such capacity is to know oneself; another is to engage with others in this work.

The Summer School will end with a check of the participants’ learning journey (mapping) and a look forward to the urgent need to practice foresight 2.0 at a new level of generality with the reflexive minds of leaders.

Go to the IFA Summer School website to learn more.

Last edited: 03 February 2014