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Better Regulation: Impact Assessments, Evaluations, and Related Tools
Strategic Foresight in Policy-Making: From Anticipating Surprise to Robust Strategy
This course introduces the most important foresight tools and demonstrates how to apply and combine them in practice. You learn about explorative scenarios, horizon scanning, megatrends, Delphi analysis, and wild cards, with a particular emphasis on translating foresight into strategic value for policy planning.
This course equips you with the relevant knowledge about the most essential foresight tools, how these tools can be combined and what it takes to implement them.
You learn about explorative scenarios, horizon scanning, megatrends, trend analysis, Delphi analysis, and wild cards. More importantly, you learn how to make foresight products useful for policy planning, by transforming foresights into strategic foresight.
The course introduces many different foresight tools along the foresight process in the policy cycle and allows you to easily identify and discuss opportunities for practical application.
What you will learn in this course:
- the nature, benefits, and limitations of strategic foresight
- the entire foresight toolbox
- the scenario methodology
- how to use strategic foresight in policy planning and decision making
The one and a half-day course is led by an expert with years of academic and practical experience Strategic Foresight. The course combines interactive presentations, practical examples, and group exercises to consolidate the concepts.
This course on Strategic Foresight in Policy-Making is one of the courses we are offering in the area of Better Regulation. Are you also interested in taking a different course in the area of better Regulation, please click here: Regulatory Impact Assessments.
By the end of the course, you will:
- Know the basic concepts of strategic foresight.
- Have gained an overview of common methods and their interrelations.
- Be able to better assess the quality of foresight products.
- Have an idea of success factors for project implementation in the field of foresight
Public officials, civil servants and policy analysts who work in government or parliamentary institutions, in EU Member States or candidate countries, similar to the following:
- ‘Better Regulation’ committees / initiatives
- centres for research and analysis
- bureaucracy reduction policies
- budget offices
- Regulatory impact assessments
Project number: 2620305
Online Course
For this online course we make use of Zoom
Senior Project Officer
Ms Nancy Vermeulen
Tel: +31 43 32 96 212
n.vermeulen@eipa.eu
Discounts
EIPA member fee
EIPA offers a discount to all civil servants working for one of EIPA’s supporting countries, and civil servants working for an EU institution, body or agency
Who are the supporting countries?
Civil servants coming from the following EIPA supporting countries are entitled to get the reduced fee: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden.
For all other participants, the regular fee applies
Early bird discount
EIPA offers 10% off on registrations made eight weeks or more before the start of a course. The early bird discount is not cumulative with other discounts or promo codes, except for the EIPA member fee.
Loyalty coupon
As a token of appreciation we offer all our participants a loyalty coupon for one of our future courses. The offer can be shared with colleagues and relevant networks. The coupon will expire one year after its release. This discount is not cumulative with other discounts, except for the EIPA member fee.
Confirmation
Confirmation of registration will be forwarded to participants on receipt of the completed online registration form.
Payment
Prior payment is a condition for participation.
Cancellation policy
For administrative reasons you will be charged € 50 for cancellations received within 7 days before the activity begins. There is no charge for qualified substitute participants.
EIPA reserves the right to cancel the activity up to 1 week before the starting date. In that case, registration fees received will be fully reimbursed.
A few days before the start of the course you will receive the log-in details for accessing the course materials. You can log in here.
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Our experts
Programme
| 08.45 | Opening of the online platform and registration of participants |
| 09.00 | Welcome and introduction to the course Marcel Hadeed, Senior Foresight Consultant at Foresight Intelligence |
| 09.15 | Introduction to Foresight & Strategic Foresight This session provides an introduction to foresight and strategic foresight. It presents the origins, uses, and limitations of foresight with a particular focus on explorative scenario planning. |
| 10.00 | Explorative Scenarios I Scenarios are very useful and versatile strategic foresight tools. This session introduces their uses and limitations and provides an overview of the methodology guiding the scenario process. Participants also learn about the essentials of horizon and environment scanning. How is it done, who does it, and what is the output? By using a learning-by-doing approach participants are engaged in a horizon scanning exercise. |
| 10.40 | Coffee break |
| 11.00 | Explorative Scenarios I (continued) In this session, participants learn how to understand uncertain environments. What is a trend? What is a key uncertainty? And how can we identify both through the noise of complexity? Participants learn how to employ uncertainty-impact-assessment techniques to answer these questions. In addition, they discuss potential uses of artificial intelligence in different foresight activities. |
| 12.00 | Lunch |
| 13.00 | Excursus: Megatrends Some developments are fairly certain to shape the world of tomorrow. Participants are introduced to the concept of megatrends and learn which resources can be accessed to monitor them. |
| 13.15 | Explorative Scenarios II In this session, participants attain an overview over different techniques to construct scenarios. The scenario cross, Daltor’s archetypes, cross-impact analysis, consistency analysis, and morphological analysis are presented. In working groups, participants employ one technique to construct scenarios and develop them further using techniques for scenario development. |
| 14.45 | Coffee |
| 15.00 | Explorative Scenarios II (cont.) Participants present and discuss the constructed scenarios, thereby learning how to critically engage with such thought experiments. |
| 15.30 | Trend Analysis This session covers different types of trend analyses with a focus on the Futures Wheel technique, which participants will employ during a working group exercise. |
| 16.30 | Final Discussion of Day 1 In the final discussion, participants have the opportunity to reflect on the learnings of the day, raise remaining questions and discuss potential use cases in their daily work. |
| 17.00 | End of day |
| 08.45 | Opening of the online platform and registration of participants |
| 09.00 | Excursus: Scenario Analysis This excursus raises (and answers) the question, wow we can evaluate the quality and usefulness of scenarios. |
| 09.30 | Wild cards and Delphi Surveys This session presents what a wild card is and how it can be used in a scenario analysis. It explores the difference between horizon scanning and a Delphi analysis and explains why expert Delphi surveys are not an adequate replacement for explorative scenarios. The session ends with an open discussion on the implementation of these foresight tools in practice, including their advantages and disadvantages. |
| 10.00 | Strategy Work This session ties tools, such as horizon scanning, explorative scenarios, Delphi surveys or wild cards to strategy work. It presents how foresight products can inform strategic policy planning, how to deal with probability, how to systematically define opportunities and threats, and how to create strategic options. After a short introduction, participants work in breakout groups and create strategic options based on a case study. The session ends with a plenary exercise on how to create no-regret options and how to design robust strategy. |
| 11.00 | Coffee break |
| 11.20 | Strategy Work (cont.) This session presents the wind tunneling technique as a tool to evaluate and improve the robustness of strategic options against uncertain developments. In working groups, participants will conduct a wind tunneling exercise. |
| 12.00 | Institutional embedding of foresight This session discusses barriers and entry points for embedding strategic foresight within the institution. It introduces some overarching ideas and suggestions to facilitate institutional embedding, particularly in public administration. Participants have the opportunity to share and discuss their specific contexts. |
| 12.20 | Closing discussion Participants are invited to ask questions, not only regarding methodology, but also concerning their own foresight challenges and reflect on the materials covered in this course. |
| 12.45 | Wrap up and evaluation This session recaps some of the most important takeaways and invites participants to evaluate the course. |
| 13.00 | End of the course |