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UN System Strategic Foresight Springboard Programme
With intensifying climate challenges, rapid technological advancements, and evolving social dynamics, how might we effectively navigate the uncertainty of a constantly changing world?
Designed exclusively for United Nations(UN) personnel, our eight-week online 2025 UN System Strategic Foresight Springboard Programme identifies tools, techniques and mindsets from across the system to make sense of change, imagine futures, and identify the action needed to make those futures possible.
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UN 2.0 envisions a modern, forward-thinking UN system equipped with cutting-edge skills suitable for the twenty-first century. To foster this transformation the "UN 2.0 Policy Brief" outlines a "Quintet of Change" with strategic foresight identified as a key capability.
Strategic foresight can feel like an abstract concept- difficult to grasp, let alone implement.
Embracing a “learning-by-doing" ethos, the focus of this programme is to provide concrete skills, guidance and tools to make Strategic foresight replicable, sustainable, and embedded as a way of working and culture: to become simply, the way we do things.
Upon successful completion you will be able to:
- Discuss what strategic foresight is, and how it differs from forecasting;
- Identify Guiding principles and common misconceptions related to Strategic Foresight;
- Explore the dynamics of further effectively navigating change by applying the Futures Triangle tool etc.
- Identify a range of futures that may have relevance to present day decision-making, by applying tools such as Scenario Development etc.
- Identify how Foresight could translate into Strategy by applying tools such as Change Agenda and Back Casting etc.
- Undertake coaching conversations with peers related to the scoping and design of Strategic Foresight Projects.
This programme provides seven hours of weekly learning, combining weekly webinars with self-study/paced modules; individual assignment; participant case presentations; and forum discussions as well as individual feedback and guidance. During the weekly webinars you will deepen their knowledge of concepts, and discuss contextualisation and application to your work in live collective activities.
Strategic foresight project
- Throughout the programme, you will identify an existing strategic foresight project within their sphere of influence. As next steps, you will utilise insights gained from the elements outlined below throughout the programme and develop a project plan/pitch to be presented at the final peer-coaching session.
During the programme, you will engage in the following elements:
Webinars
- Immerse yourself in weekly Webinars, spread across eight weeks focused on key concepts around strategic foresight.
Individual assignments
- Define and scope your strategic foresight project through two individual assignments and obtain personalized feedback from a coach.
Peer-coaching sessions
- Practice your coaching skills through four, two-hour coaching sessions and gain insights for your strategic foresight project from colleagues across the system.
Online forum
- Engage in a moderated space for reflection, where you will be given a tool relevant to the theme of the week for you to share your experience with the rest of your peers.
Resources:
- Gain relevant pre-readings and materials to introduce and outline key concepts and processes from a UN context.
Self-paced modules
- Taking advantage of the UNSSC designed BlueLine self-paced learning platform, participants will be provided access to an optional UN 2.0 themed learning pathway during the contextualisation weeks.
Topics include:
- UN 2.0 Fundamentals E-Learning Path
- Managing Up
- Introduction to Change Management
In this programme, you will be exposed to the following content:
Week One: Foresight Foundations | Introduction and Orientation
- Get to know the Programme, your resource persons and peers!
- Discuss the Theory of Futures Studies; futures thinking; and strategic and transformational futures.
- List the core concepts of Strategic Objectives
Week Two: Blueprints for Change | The Futures Triangle and Futures Landscape
- Identify case studies, outline what works and what does not when using Strategic Foresight.
- Identify how to map the future with the Six Pillars Model
- Use the Futures triangle
- Use the Futures Landscape to audit foresight in organizations
Week Three: Spotting Signals | Anticipating Emerging Trends and Impacts
- Differentiate between emerging issues analysis, weak signals, and black swans
- Use the Futures Wheel to articulate first and second order impacts of the issue with the Six Pillars Model
Week Four: Learning from the Past to Shape Tomorrow | Navigating Patterns
- Identify what is novel and what is linear, cyclical, pendulum and spiral
- Use historical patterns of understand the changing space-time of the future with the Six Pillars Model
Week Five: Imagining Possible Futures | Scenario Development
- Clarify different scenario building techniques
- Utilize Scenario Development to identify various futures
- Identify the weaknesses of the scenario matrix approach
- Develop scenarios
Week Six: Unpacking Culture | Causal Layered Analysis
- Learn how to use Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) with the Six Pillars Model
- Apply CLA to an external issue – the strategic foresight project
- Apply CLA to an inner issue
Week Seven: Connecting the dots | Visioning and Backcasting
- Use scenarios and CLA to envision the future
- Use backcasting to link the future to the present
- Link the long term with the present
- Make the case for change
Week Eight: From Foresight to Strategy
- Identify the importance of transitioning from Foresight to Strategy in a UN Context
- Utilize Change Agenda tool to identify the changes needed to achieve the desired Future
All UN personnel at headquarters and field locations who are engaged in strategic foresight or would like to deepen their knowledge on the topic.
This course is available for self-enrollment, or for groups nominated by a UN entity at a different price. Before registering, we encourage you to consult with your organization to confirm any internal nomination/eligibility processes and also to check availability of funding.
The Programme costs $2,500. The tuition covers:
• Preliminary phase
- Learning needs assessment to customize the programme to your needs.
• Core programme phase
- Eight interactive webinar sessions with expert instructors;
- Four peer-coaching sessions to enhance your coaching skills and build your innovation case;
- Two assignments on your strategic foresight project with individualized feedback;
- A curated moderated online forum to reflect on the learnings from the webinars;
- Readings and resource material that outline key concepts to refer to during and after the programme;
- Optional self-paced modules;
- Unlimited access to a curated online UNSSC e-lounge learning platform.
- Certificate of completion.
