Multi-layered foresight: Lessons from regional foresight in Chile

•We structure foresight effects with four layers and three facets.•The layers are landscape, innovation system, organisation and individual.•The facets are knowledge, relations and capabilities.•Landscape layer focuses more on knowledge and organisational layer on capabilities.•Multi-layered foresight helps position and compare foresight exercises.

The design, management and evaluation of foresight is challenging firstly due to the vast diversity of foresight practices and secondly due to its embeddedness in the context of other policy processes. To help overcome these challenges we look at the contributions of foresight from multiple perspectives in a systemic way and propose the concept of multi-layered foresight, which analyses the contributions of foresight to knowledge, relations and capabilities on four layers: landscape, system, organisation and individual. We construct these layers building on earlier literature and illustrate them with a case example from the region of Antofagasta in Chile. We argue that foresight exercises benefit from considering multiple levels and respective different emphases in analysis. For instance, on the landscape layer the focus tends to be on contributions to knowledge while on the organisational layer it is more on capabilities. The layers help position the foresight exercise and its effects in relation to the broader context. Thus, we expect the concept of multi-layered foresight to support the design, management and evaluation of foresight.