Qu’est ce que la prospective ? Can a Foresight Exercise be Evaluated?

We need to differentiate here between:

• The relevance criteria of the conjectures made about the future (the contents);
• The relevance criteria of a foresight exercise (the processes).

Conjectures made about the future have a value if:

• They are reasoned and therefore plausible within a definite time-frame (the dynamics or conditions that would enable them to occur within that time-frame can be convincingly explained).
• They are characterized in terms of their probability or uncertainty (including where these are only relative).
• They are sufficiently precise to be refutable (at the end of the time-frame of the foresight study, it will be possible to say whether a particular hypothesis turned out to be correct or not).

Foresight exercises have relevance if:

• There is one (or more) client(s) or sponsor(s).
• The objectives of the exercise (and the assessment criteria) are relatively clearly defined.
• The results are not pre-ordained and the conditions for an unrestricted process of thinking are put in place.
• The time-frames of the exercise are specified.
• The degree of participation and the roles of the various actors involved in the exercise have been discussed.
• There is a proper fit between the goals of the exercise and the (human and financial) resources and time allocated to it.