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Foresight examines and charts alternative future scenarios based on evolving present-day trends. Rather than predicting specific events, it generates multiple plausible futures to inform adaptable, forward-looking policies.

Its goal is to stimulate consideration of possibilities that may not yet be obvious but whose early indicators might already exist. By deliberately expanding the range of potential outcomes and their implications, foresight challenges conventional assumptions about what lies ahead.

Foresight scenarios do not claim to reveal the most probable future. Instead, they help explore the significance of unexpected developments—encouraging us to “think the unthinkable.”

The practice traces its roots to Cold War military strategy, particularly the work of Herman Kahn at the RAND Corporation (1962). Foresight and scenario planning evolved from these foundations, offering structured ways to anticipate and prepare for uncertainty.

Foresight begins where forecasting ends.

Forecasting relies on past and present data, using trend analysis and extrapolation to predict probable futures. It focuses on known (though uncertain) risks, projecting how events are most likely to unfold based on quantitative methods. The scenarios it generates aim to make future outcomes visible, measurable, and categorized according to existing data and our current understanding of trends.

While forecasting is highly effective for short-term projections, its reliability diminishes over longer time horizons as underlying assumptions break down. Traditional forecasting struggles to account for hidden shocks or sudden disruptions that defy historical patterns.

The COVID-19 pandemic exemplifies this limitation. By early 2020, global forecasts were rendered obsolete as the crisis unfolded in ways that existing models couldn’t predict. The world entered uncharted territory, where conventional frameworks offered little guidance. While foresight may not have precisely anticipated the pandemic’s specifics, it could have explored scenarios for such radical disruptions—helping societies prepare for the unexpected.