Qu’est ce que la prospective ?
What is Foresight for?
A foresight exercise may be prompted by any one of six major needs:
1. To have Interpretative Guides for Dealing with Major Change
This is the need that underlies most freely available foresight studies. The best-known are probably the reports entitled Global Trends produced by the National Intelligence Council (the latest being Global Trends 2040 of March 2021).
EU bodies (Commission and Parliament), branches of government (France Stratégie, l’IRES au Maroc, etc.) and many private organizations and think-tanks also produce such studies; the Vigie reports or the articles in Futuribles journal fall into this category.
The aim is to provide interpretative guides for understanding and anticipating the major transformations of the contemporary world, and to prepare for them. But much work of this kind is also intended to exert influence.
2. To Anticipate Risk through Monitoring and Early-Warning Systems
Most organizations need to anticipate the risks that are important for their activities. In this case, the role of foresight is to identify the critical events that may occur, to estimate the probability and time-scale of such events and, of course, to study the organization’s vulnerability to them.
The foresight method may then be developed to structure systems for anticipating and managing risks. Permanent foresight monitoring systems are developed in organizations whose core mission is risk management (internal and external security, health agencies, insurers), but also in entities that wish to limit their exposure to risks (companies, local or regional authorities etc.) or to prepare to confront them.
Foresight then makes it possible:
- to identify critical events or situations;
- to estimate the probability and time-scale of such events;
- to study the organization’s vulnerability;
- to prepare appropriate response paths.
By way of example, we may cite the work of CNP-Assurances on emerging risks up to the year 2035.
3. To Prepare Responses to a Precise Strategic Question
A number of strategic questions require a structured process of thinking about the future: what is the context and what are the long-term needs, the possible choices and their impacts?
This is particularly the case when the decision is to have a lasting impact on the future of a community, whether in terms of infrastructure (airports, tunnels, roads, high speed train lines, optical fibre etc.), social welfare systems or education policies, local/regional authorities or businesses.
Highly consequential decisions are too often taken on the basis of partial diagnoses, based on past data, without a systemic or forward-looking vision. Today, the use of foresight often incorporates a participatory strand which makes it possible to involve stakeholders in the groundwork for decision-making.
Example: the consultation exercise around the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur high speed rail link.
4. To Recast a Vision, Objectives or Overall Strategy
Most organizations (businesses, associations, local and regional authorities, administrations, etc.) need to structure elements of vision and strategy that guide their day-to-day action.
That vision then consists in defining (or redefining) goals and objectives that take into account the potentialities of the organization in a manner entirely consonant with the possible ways in which its environment will evolve. The vision may also offer a representation of the organization, of its missions and its stakeholders over time.
The strategy that ensues from this vision then comprises the ways and means to arrive at these objectives. It may, to a greater or lesser degree, be planned, depending on organizational culture, sector of activity or operational context.
Foresight exercises must, therefore, make it possible to structure collective thinking about the possible ways the context will evolve, but also to broach possible ways that the organization will develop to bring out the issues and the margins for manoeuvre and thus perform the groundwork for decision-making (necessary adaptations, strategic gambles etc.). Here again, foresight often includes a participatory strand that enables stakeholders to be involved in that groundwork.
Examples: in the public policy field: Finland stands out as a shining example for the systems it has put in place to introduce foresight thinking into the development of its public policies. This is also the case today with Singapore, Great Britain, or local and regional authorities such as the Pays de la Loire region, or the town of Loos-en-Gohelle. Since 2009, the French Senate has also developed a Foresight Bureau.
Many charities (the French Red Cross and the Restos du Coeur, for example), professional associations (e.g. the work of British and French veterinary surgeons) and businesses are also developing these kinds of approach.
5. To Stimulate or Create Innovation
Foresight is increasingly being called upon to promote (entrepreneurial or social) innovation, in two distinct but complementary ways:
— In a traditional way, foresight exercises are used to stimulate innovation in organizations, because they assist in the structuring of imaginary, but believable futures that the various actors dip into to re-evaluate their portfolio of activities and imagine new products or services.
— In a more contemporary way, it can help actors to find satisfactory responses to new challenges they are not necessarily equipped to deal with. The foresight approach may contribute, in that case, to defining the new issues in collectives which involve various different actors that are apparent stakeholders in the proposed solutions.
Example: No single actor is able to offer a ready-made solution for setting up a system of carbon-neutral transport within a given locality by 2050. On the other hand, with local and regional communities, vehicle manufacturers, transport users and digital companies all thinking together about the various possible ways forward, it may be possible to spur the emergence of solutions that are up to the challenge.
The foresight approach also offers a framework for collective thinking about the great transformations that are in the pipeline and developing a culture that permits initiatives to blossom.
Example: Michelin has developed an innovation ecosystem based on communities of interest that are often structured around a foresight method.
6. To Develop and Enhance a Group’s Ability for Anticipation and Emancipation
In these approaches, the foresight exercise aims not so much to ‘produce’ a deliverable, a strategy, as to be the source of an individual and collective learning process.
Since the early 1990s, it has become evident that those who take part in foresight exercises improve learning on the content of the topics worked on (‘a common language’, shared knowledge), but they also learn to throw off immediate perceptions (particularly unfounded fears or hopes) and acquire a nimbleness in their thinking about the future, the agility required to project themselves forward and imagine new solutions.
The state of mind and abilities developed are of primary significance here. We see ‘a recasting of perceptions’ (Jean-François de Andria, Renault’s Director of Planning and Strategy in the 1990s); participants have a deeper understanding of the environment and the organization, and stakeholders are more able to express their expectations and preferences.
Since the 2000s, foresight has developed as a means of learning and emancipation, reconnecting with the initial foresight approached proposed by François Villon or Gaston Berger (see question 1, above).
And since the 2010s a new field has emerged, the field of ‘Futures Literacy’, promoted by UNESCO, among others, which, by incorporating the ways a human group conceives and uses the future, aims to work to develop that group’s relation to it.
Some Freely Available Foresight Studies
Cahiers de la prospective de CNP Assurances: ‘Familles, générations et liens sociaux d’ici à 2030’ (2021), ‘Risques émergents à horizon 2035. Aux frontières de l’assurabilité’ (2022)
Colliers: élaboration de scénarios sur l’évolution des environnements de travail à l’horizon 2030 (2019), Édition 2021 Post-Covid-19 (2021)
Santé 2030 (2019)
Demain Bourges, trajectoires 2050 (2018)
VetFuturs 2030, l’avenir de la profession vétérinaire en France à l’horizon 2030 (2017-2018), a French government ‘Blue Book’.
Chasse, nature et société 2040 (2017-2019)
Étude prospective Adour 2050 (2017-2018)
Prospective des réalités sahéliennes 2030 (2017)
Plateformisation 2027. Conséquences de l’ubérisation en santé et sécurité au travail, with INRS (Institut national de recherche et de sécurité pour la prévention des accidents du travail et des maladies professionnelles) (2017)
Observatoire des enjeux géopolitiques de la démographie (2016-2018)
The Future of Aid INGOs in 2030 (2016-2017)
AFD 2025 (2016)
Action terrestre future (2016)
Culture et médias 2030 (2009) and Culture et médias 2020 (2011)