FUTURES OF EDUCATION

Roughly every 250 years, human civilisation undergoes a dramatic reset. They are moments where kingdoms rise and fall, economies shift, values are rewritten, and societies reorganise themselves at every level — political, economic, cultural, even existential. These aren’t ordinary historical moments but mega epochs, when all shorter societal cycles align and force civilisation onto a new path.

Defence debates tend to focus on firepower. But the most destabilising risks may come from something far harder to quantify: the fraying of social trust, the manipulation of truth, and the erosion of the middle class.

Militaries are adopting AI at speed; the real test will be keeping decisions accountable in an age of autonomous operations.

From biological markers to power structures, many variables shape how we understand the rhythm of societal change.

Across history, patterns of rise and fall, peace and war, innovation and decline seem to unfold in rhythms - some as short as a decade, others stretching over a century. Are there five, six, or even more distinct lengths to these societal cycles?

Complexity Theory as a Framework for Understanding Societal Transformation

What can generational theories tell us about this shift?

Every 50 years or so, according to Kondratieff wave theory, capitalist economies reorganise themselves around a new technological foundation, sparking the rise of new business ecosystems. Where are we now in that cycle—and what might the next foundation look like?

Our team of futurists took the stage as guest speakers at a Foresight Europe Network event, where the foresight community gathered to explore the future of strategic foresight in an increasingly AI-driven world. Here are the highlights.

AI’s rapid rise in the workplace is opening up new possibilities—some optimistic, others unsettling. Our team of futurists explore how AI could alter job roles, workplace dynamics, and society at large through four distinct scenarios.

AI Futurist is a generative AI chatbot designed to make futures exploration more interactive and efficient. Powered by expert-validated data from Futures Platform, it provides reliable, transparent, and precise insights tailored to each user’s strategic needs.

Generative AI is reshaping the creative field, stirring ethical debates, copyright challenges, and reigniting age-old questions about the very essence of creativity. We present four scenarios that explore how these forces may shape the sector’s future.

How can AI enhance - and perhaps disrupt - the landscape of foresight work in the years and decades ahead?

Research has found that strategic foresight has a significant impact on an organisation’s bottom line – those who think about the future could be looking at up to 33% higher profitability and 200% higher market capitalisation within their industries.

Today’s businesses face mounting pressure to keep innovating in order to grow and outpace the competition. Innovation management is crucial to ensure that the great minds within your organisation bring forth their ideas, the viable ones are identified, and the ones put to practice are in line with your strategy.

2022 was a year of great upheaval and change, with a series of political and economic crises that will reverberate for many years to come. Looking back to the year, our team of futurists highlight five trends that shaped the trajectory of 2022 and will continue to shape the future.

Population growth rates are stagnating in many countries around the world, but the economics of a declining population is still uncharted territory for modern economic theory. How will our growth-based economic systems fare when the population declines?

Futures Platform, an all-in-one collaborative digital solution for strategic foresight work, is thrilled to announce that the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has accepted us as a service supplier on their G-Cloud 13 Digital Marketplace.

It may seem like there’s more technological innovation than ever today, but more innovation doesn’t necessarily mean more economic growth.

Through a series of workshops with three national tax authorities, we explored the key opportunities and risks the metaverse presents to the future of taxation.

With the steep rise in volumes of counterfeit consumer goods entering the global marketplace, brands, retailers, and governments are facing new challenges.

Will artificial intelligence bring an end to the traditional labour market? Fears of mass technological unemployment have a powerful impact on economical policies, but modern economic theory suggests that these fears might be misplaced.