Guidance

Futures toolkit for policymakers and analysts

The Futures Toolkit provides a set of tools to help you develop policies and strategies that are robust in the face of an uncertain future. 

• From: Government Office for Science
• Published: 8 July 2014
• Last updated: 29 August 2024 — See all updates

Documents

The Futures Toolkit HTML

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Futures Toolkit: tools for strategic futures for policymakers and analysts

PDF, 2.82 MB, 117 pages

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Details

The Futures Toolkit provides a set of tools to help embed long-term strategic thinking within the policy process, and explains how to ensure they have real impact. It is intended for policy officials and analysts across government. This is the updated 2024 version.

The toolkit summarises what futures thinking is, how it can be used in policymaking and describes a series of tools that can be used by policymakers to manage in uncertainty and identify future actions. It is intended to be accessible to people who have little or no experience using these tools, as well as those who are more experienced, and a guide for those commissioning futures projects.

Experts from government and industry have contributed to its development and have provided case studies to illustrate the tools. 

More detailed case studies can be found here, and resources to support each tool can be found here.  

The toolkit sits alongside other GO-Science futures resources, including our Brief Guide to Futures Thinking and Foresight, and our Trend Deck.

This is the 2024 version of the Futures Toolkit: we are continuing to test and improve it. We would welcome your feedback.

Published 8 July 2014
Last updated 29 August 2024 + show all updates

1. 29 August 2024

   The PDF version of the Futures Toolkit has been updated to include the Crown copyright disclaimer at the end.

2. 11 July 2024

   Uploaded an updated version of the Futures Toolkit in July 2024.

3. 16 January 2018

   Updated version of the toolkit published (edition 1.0).

4. 8 July 2014

   First published.