The Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies has a long history and proven track-record of working with corporations and organisations worldwide, advising on strategic foresight, megatrend analysis and scenario planning. Futures studies is not about predicting the future, but rather it is about building resilience and identifying opportunities in the face of uncertainty, while also embracing what can emerge out of complexity.

We are global leaders in the use of futurist methods developed to solve strategic organisational and business challenges. We apply the methodology to support our clients in future-proofing strategies, planning beyond forecasting, risk analysis as well as foresight-driven innovation processes.

Our methods are tailored to meet your specific challenges and needs, which we will match with our specialist knowledge developed through decades of experience. Our experts span across more than 10 different academic and professional disciplines, which we believe enables us to mirror and reflect the kaleidoscope of dynamics affecting any modern individual, business, or organisation. A collaboration with us will strengthen your ability to navigate in the future as well as your capacity to shape it.

The Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies works exploratively and independently of special interests. This ensures your organisation a dynamic, applicable, and unbiased approach delivering a result that builds on a 360-degree view of the future.

How We Work

Collaborative and actionable

We work in direct collaboration with clients, members and global expert panels. We have systematised our co-creation processes in a way that makes the results relevant and easy to turn into practical action plans.

Harvesting internal and external knowledge

Continuous horizon scanning of trends, developments and disruptions enables us to stay on top of global change. We engage thought leaders in our research and tap into the collective wisdom of the organisations we work with.

Building a common understanding

Our process facilitates stakeholder engagement and collective sense-making. We strive towards shared future visions to support strategic resilience and decision making, as well as strengthen awareness across the organisation and its external stakeholders and customers.

Our Approach

Megatrends

Megatrends are long-term trends that influence societies globally. They are tectonic plates moving underneath our societies, which slowly but surely shape and affect most things around us. Our mantra is ‘you can’t hide from a megatrend’. When developing a solid and successful strategy or scenario process, it is essential to identify the megatrends influencing the future of your particular organisation and to be prepared for their effects.

Scenarios

With scenario planning, we map the possible and plausible futures that your organisation should be prepared to navigate. We anchor our approach in the core uncertainties facing your organisation. Scenarios are vivid narratives capturing the development of key aspects across the PESTE framework encompassing Politics, Economics, Society, Technology and Environment. Together, they outline your future contextual environment and create the foundation for strategy development and the opportunity to actively influence the future. The key here is the notion that ‘you can plan for some things most of the time, but you can not plan for everything all the time’. Scenarios enable you to focus your efforts on the drivers which are key to your business.

Our Services

Strategy

Strategic development is a matter of influencing your organisation's future in the desired direction. Your strategy should build on a thorough analysis that provides a holistic perspective on your organisation's future contextual environment, and not least which uncertainties to focus on and work with. Our approach provides tools to develop or future-proof your strategy and tell implicit assumptions from critical uncertainties.

Risk

Anchored in megatrend analysis, we help in marrying short term operational and business risk management with long term strategic risks, as both are detrimental to an organisation’s survival and longevity. Societal development patterns and megatrends are in themselves neither positive nor negative, but when interpreted into your concrete organisational reality they may have major effects. We will help you with tools and methods to assess these risks and recognise the challenges and opportunities that arise from them on the emerging horizon. Additionally, we can support in development key leading indicators, enabling you to track the developments in identified critical risks.

Innovation

Innovation is the key to long-term competitiveness in the global markets and works best in close connection with long-term thinking, strategy, and scenarios. Innovation happens today but is intended for a future consumer or need. Expectations about the future are central guideposts when we help organisations to discover new concepts and further develop innovation processes.

Our 10 Principles for Strategic Foresight

Want to improve your Strategic Foresight? Take one of our courses

We offer Strategic Foresight courses on a running basis, both live-online and on-site at our location in Copenhagen.

Here, you will learn how to bring futures thinking into strategy. We upskill our course participants with a structured process for understanding dynamics of change, planning for alternative scenarios, and transitioning from applied strategic foresight and futures studies to strategy.

You can see our current course dates in our calendar.