Hanze University of Applied Sciences

Futures Literacy

We use the future every day. We predict, fear, hope, and dream. This has a large impact on how we act and think in the present, and yet, we know very little about how we use the future.

Futures Literacy, developed within UNESCO, is a capability that helps us imagine multiple and diverse futures to identify the systems we use to anticipate. When we become aware of the things that can open up to the unexpected and the unknown, the InsteaedThis way w can use the future, instead of We learn how to sue the future hat offers insights on how we approach unforeseeable challenges by using the future to innovate the present (Miller, 2015). When we only use knowledge constructed in the past and the present to predict the future, detecting novelty and being open for change becomes problematic. By expanding the ways on how to use the future, we can integrate complexity in our choices.

One tool to acquire these skills is through Futures Literacy Labs. These learning by doing/action-research workshops enable participants to reveal, reframe, and rethink the assumptions they use to imagine the future. Since the future doesn’t exist and is unpredictable in itself, we are only capable of examining our anticipatory systems, the systems that help us make sense of the present.