Strategic Foresight at NIOSH

Strategic Foresight at NIOSH

Key points

  • Strategic Foresight is a discipline that creates a structured way of exploring and preparing for the future.
  • NIOSH has developed a Foresight Framework for Occupational Safety and Health.
  • Foresight Friday @NIOSH webinars connect foresight practice to occupational safety and health.
Telescope in foreground with mountain and ocean scenery in background blurred out. View of telescope is where you put your eye to look through and the word focus is shown.

Overview

Strategic foresight is an action-oriented discipline related to futures studies. The practice of strategic foresight does not predict the future. Instead, it looks ahead and asks:

  • what may be coming
  • how it might affect us
  • what we can do today to prepare for the future

Exploring these questions can help us start moving toward a preferred future outcome.

Developing scenarios of the future is a useful tool to help identify key uncertainties and strategic issues that we can consider when planning and preparing for the future. Foresight professionals use a number of different tools to:

  • Look for signals of change
  • Identify primary drivers of the future
  • Craft a set of well informed, plausible future scenarios
  • Identify key strategic issues and action plans

The forward-facing view of foresight can enhance strategic planning during periods of complexity, instability, or uncertainty. Foresight helps identify early signals of changes that may be coming. Having early insight into these changes can reduce the likelihood of being unprepared for or surprised by them when they arrive in the future.

Foresight Framework

The NIOSH Foresight Framework for Occupational Safety and Health is an adaptation of the Framework Foresight method developed by the University of Houston.1 This flexible approach provides a clear roadmap through the foresight process and provides a useful structure for exploring a variety of project topics and aims.

6 numbered boxes in a horizontal row with arrows pointing to the right. Text in boxes outlines the Foresight Framework for OSH. 1. Framing, 2. Scanning, 3. Futuring, 4. Visioning, 5. Designing, 6. Monitoring
The Framework has six linked and interrelated stages:
  1. Framing: identifying and describing the OSH domain or topic of interest and other project parameters.
  2. Scanning: searching a variety of sources for information about how things might be different in the future for the domain of interest.
  3. Futuring: developing alternative future scenarios (i.e., stories) for the domain.
  4. Visioning: considering the implications of the different scenarios to uncover potential risks, challenges, and opportunities and assess future preparedness.
  5. Designing: planning and constructing strategic approaches in support of a desired future.
  6. Monitoring: continuing to scan for new signals of change and updating the domain frame as needed for future foresight efforts.

Contacts

Please direct any questions about strategic foresight to the NIOSH Office of Research Integration (ORI@cdc.gov).

Selected publications

These articles take a deeper look into NIOSH's development and use of the NIOSH Foresight Framework for OSH:

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Content Source:
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
  1. Hines A, Bishop P [2013]. Framework foresight: Exploring futures the Houston way. Futures 51(2013): 41-51