The future revisited: Looking back at The next 25 years by the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR)

Looking back at futures studies in the past (past futures) is perhaps the second nature of futures researchers. In this article we look back at a study that was conducted by the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy in 1977. We considered it interesting to assess its value 25 years later since many changes have taken place in technology, society, economy, and in the science of futures research as well. From our analysis we have drawn the following conclusions: (1) instead of giving every topic the same time horizon more diverse time horizons should be included because of the different dynamics, (2) more attention for people and opinions outside the mainstream discourse, (3) more attention for thinking in multiple futures instead of predicting just one future outcome, (4) do not only look at the (possible) future of a specific topic, but assess if this topic in its whole will be relevant in the future important (meta-forecast), and (5) more attention for integrating topics for futures studies, but not fulfilling the impossible ambition to link everything to everything.