THE INDUSTRY STANDARD SOURCE FOR TREND AND SCENARIO ANALYSES
CREATED BY PROFESSIONAL FUTURISTS
A TEAM OF PROFESSIONAL FUTURISTS WORKING FOR YOU
WE WORK 24/7 ON UPDATING AND ADDING NEW CONTENT
At the heart of our solution is an exceptionally rich collection of in-depth analyses of future phenomena, all available to you as our platform subscriber. Our in-house team of 10+ futurists work relentlessly on adding new high-quality pieces of content and keeping existing ones up to date.
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Futures Platform offers the world’s largest repository of in-depth analyses of future phenomena. Each trend analysis is published in an easy-to-digest article format, including an introductory video, additional readings and AI-generated feed of related news & signals. You may also create your own phenomena as you like.
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Our rigorous analysis process draws from the methodology of future studies, and includes approaches like horizon scanning, driver mapping and scenario analysis. Each phenomenon is peer reviewed before publication.
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Every card on Futures Platform’s foresight database is assigned a type according to its anticipated future development path. We normally categorise future phenomena into four general types - Strengthening, Weakening, Wild Card and Weak Signal.
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We ensure a rich coverage of topics by applying a 32-domain taxonomy of the world, including domains such as energy, values and ethics, food, public governance, and climate change. Each of these domains are continuously being monitored for potential new phenomena to be analyzed further.
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For each of the 32 domains, our futurists have created a foresight radar, giving a handy way to start exploring and understanding related phenomena. You may create & edit your own radars with or without the existing templates.
MEET A FEW OF OUR FUTURISTS
Dr. Tuomo Kuosa, Director of Futures Research
Associate Professor, Strategic Foresight
Max Stucki, Futurist
Content Analysis Manager
Shiori Ota, Futurist
Senior Foresight Analyst
LEARN MORE ABOUT TREND ANALYSIS BY FUTURISTS
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Recently published trend analyses
RECENTLY PUBLISHED TREND ANALYSES
Each analysis is run through a systematic research process conducted by professionally trained futurists. For each analysis, we identify, among others, key drivers, potential paths of events, key scenarios, and main implications. Each analysis is peer reviewed before adding onto the platform. Read more about the typical contents of a trend analysis further below.
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April 15th, 2025
Wild card. If alcohol consumption worldwide could be permanently reduced, the health and life quality of global populations would significantly improve.
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April 10th, 2025
Weak signal. In the future, with advances in AI and machine learning, modulating sleep could open opportunities for innovative products and procedures used for therapy, sleep enhancements, and concepts like working while sleeping.
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April 8th, 2025
Strengthening Trend. As birth rates decline, especially in developed nations, pro-natal incentives may help reverse the trend but could also risk marginalizing diverse families and reducing women's autonomy if aligned with conservative gender norms.
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April 3rd, 2025
Weak signal. Without changing our consumption habits and improving recycling, we risk massive waste, though right-to-repair laws and circular models offer hope.
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April 1st, 2025
Strengthening Trend. Both virtual cells and human digital twins are computer-generated models and could enable scientists and physicians to run experiments on computers rather than on living cells or organs.
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March 27th, 2025
Weak signal. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is in a deep governance and security crisis. A stark rise in the number of terrorist attacks, coups, and constitutional breaches threaten the stability in the region.
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March 25th, 2025
Weak signal. British author Alastair Humphreys has been a strong advocate for microadventures – short, local, and low-cost excursions that may offer excitement, challenge, and refreshing experiences.
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March 20th, 2025
Strengthening Trend. Isolationist and protectionist sentiment in the United States is growing. A combination of declining global influence, domestic challenges, and shifting political priorities is driving a renewed focus on non-involvement in international affairs.
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March 18th, 2025
Strengthening Trend. Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and intense around the world, largely due to human-induced climate change. The effects of these events are already felt, but they will intensify under the current projections.
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March 13th, 2025
Wild card. A cycle of dependency, donor fatigue and alternative development models could lead to the end of aid reliance in developing countries. Despite receiving financial support for decades, many low-income nations have struggled to achieve economic independence.
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March 11th, 2025
Strengthening Trend. The development towards new type of smart, rapid, accurate, and resource-optimised processes in warfare is referred to as the "uberisation"of the battlefield.
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March 6th, 2025
Weak signal. The media landscape is becoming increasingly polarised and fragmented along ideological lines, reflecting a deeper and broader division within society. A dramatically shrinking number of media outlets is perceived as trustworthy.
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March 4th, 2025
Wild card. Observable changes in world politics and global metrics suggest that overall international cooperation may be stagnating.
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February 27th, 2025
Weak signal. Researchers have found that cellular concrete’s lightweight characteristics make it suitable for construction in earthquake-prone areas.
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February 25th, 2025
Wild card. A recent study by Chinese researchers revealed that some of the already existing language models can create replicas of themselves without human assistance to avoid being shut down.
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February 20th, 2025
Strengthening Trend. As natural buffer zones have been largely destroyed, cities are searching for protective measures, often investing in costly construction projects of unsure long-term effectiveness.
TREND AND SCENARIO ANALYSES
The Futures Platform solution is built on a vast repository of comprehensive analyses and descriptions of future phenomena, created and curated by our in-house team of professional futurists. Here is a brief overview of what each of our 1000+ phenomenon cards contains, all available to you as a subscriber.
Type & Timing
What and when?
Each phenomenon card begins with a title that explains the core of the phenomenon in a few words. Along with the title, the theme tags help users to understand the scope of the trend at a glance. Each phenomenon is assigned into one of four types - Strengthening, Weakening, Wild Card and Weak Signal. Except for weak signals, all trends on our foresight database have an expert-assessed time frame within which the phenomenon is anticipated to either accelerate or decline.
Summary & background
What is it about?
Each trend description has a summary section which explains the key idea of the trend, the current situation, and the most likely future development paths and impacts, all in one paragraph. Following the summary, there's a video by an external party to supplement our analysis and to provide a relevant explanatory overview of the phenomenon in question.
Drivers & scenarios
How it could unfold and why?
A trend analysis card also contains an assessment of key drivers – the underlying key driving forces behind the trend as identified by our futurists. These drivers are also the building blocks of the scenario analysis presented in several of our phenomena. Each such card contains two in-depth scenario narratives that reflect our futurists’ assessment of the two likeliest directions the given trend may take in the future.
Impact assessment
What are the implications?
The scenario descriptions are followed up by a development path section, which lists three to four steps and timelines that could plausibly happen to move us closer to the given scenario. The purpose of this section is to give readers a list of signs and indicators to look out for when monitoring the future development of the trend.
Additional information
Where to learn more from?
Last but not least, each trend descripition also gives the reader a rich and relevant set of directions to go deeper and further in the analysis. Importantly, we provide a list of related other phenomena on our platform. We also provide a list of links to relevant additional indormation and readings, as well as an auto-crawled feed of relevant news and signals, powered by our strong semantic analysis algorithm.
FORESIGHT RADARS CREATED BY FUTURISTS
Once you have identified a number of relevant phenomena, it’s time to start organising and seeing the forest from the trees. For this, the platform offers a versatile foresight radar tool.
All your radars are fully customisable, and you may build one easily from scratch even if you are not that familiar with horizon scanning methodology. We also offer 40+ pre-filled radar templates that our futurists keep constantly up to date.
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Get a thorough understanding of what is likely to be ahead in your future operational environments. With the radar tool and pre-existing content you can start forming a comprehensive control room for the future.
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Once you’ve collected relevant future phenomena on a radar, you enter a collaborative phase of organising and structuring your future outlook by time horizon, likelihood and relevance.
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Scenario planning is about understanding key drivers and events, and organising these into plausible sequences, that is, scenarios. Our platform helps this process and provides pre-existing scenarios created by our futurists.
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Naturally, all of these phases may involve several people, even multiple teams. Such co-creative work has been made easy with the versatile collaboration and sharing features on the platform.
Example radar: Global impacts of the Ukraine war
SUPPORT AND SERVICES
WE ARE WITH YOU AT EVERY STAGE OF YOUR JOURNEY
Along with the platform and the unique content on it, we offer a rich array of guidance and services along your journey, and towards the next level in your organization’s foresight capability.
ONBOARDING AND SUPPORT
With each new subscription we assign a dedicated foresight specialist from our customer success team. We are dedicated to making sure all relevant people from your organisation get a kickstart in working with the platform. This is topped with an annual development plan tailor-made for each customer.
CONSULTING SERVICES
To help you dive even deeper into foresight analysis, we’ve developed an array of additional services, and offer the expertise of our futurists and consulting team for you. Our services range from custom trend packages and foresight workshops to large-scale foresight capability development projects.
WHAT OUR CUSTOMERS SAY
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Comprehensive.
“In todays connected and fast paced world, there is a lot to track as a Foresight team – and we do. Futures Platform’s combination of artificial and human intelligence helps us to overlook as little as possible.“
— Thomas Boermans,
Head of Foresight, E.On -
Very usable.
“Futures Platform's radars and phenomena are very usable as a tool for horizon scanning and can assist the work of the policy analyst. They can be particularly valuable for the two purposes of horizon scanning: long-term planning and policy analysis.”
— European Parliamentary Research Service,
Scientific Foresight Unit (STOA)
HAVE ANY QUESTIONS?
Submit your question or enquiry below, and our foresight specialist will get back to you with more specific details.