Futures Literacy

Being futures-literate empowers the imagination. It enhances our ability to prepare, recover and invent in the face of change.

In its role as a global laboratory of ideas, UNESCO has championed Futures Literacy since 2012: the competency that allows people to better understand the role of the future in what they see and do.

In our complex world, the global challenges we face require more inclusive and agile approaches to policy design and decision-making. Rooted in the discipline of anticipation, Futures Literacy can improve our capacity to shape policies and systems that withstand shocks and create long-term resilience.

Futures Literacy helps people understand why and how we use the future to prepare, plan, and interact with the complexity and novelty of our societies. Through structured on-the-ground learning-by-doing activities known as Futures Literacy Laboratories (FLLs), communities and individuals can learn about how the origins of what they imagine and can empower them to diversify their actions.

UNESCO works with a broad set of partners to re-imagine over 50 different topics, including technology, youth, gender, climate change, and value creation, enabling innovative leadership and sustainable solutions.

Futures Literacy at UNESCO

Over 110 Futures Literacy Laboratories (FLL) in 44 countries, led by UNESCO since 2012.
37 UNESCO Chairs in Futures Literacy, Futures Studies and Anticipation established since 2014, from 31 countries across all regions.
Major international academic co-publication: Transforming the Future: Anticipation in the 21st Century (2018)

Capability-based approach to futures

01.

Using the Future to Rethink the Present

Through exploring different types of futures — probable, preferable, and reframed — UNESCO Social and Human Sciences encourages Futures Literacy Laboratories participants to escape the dominant narratives about the future and embrace new possibilities for action. By integrating a long-term perspective, people learn to use the future to see the present anew.

02.

Fostering Diverse Futures

Through a participatory action-learning process, people can sense and make sense of various narratives of the future and explore different ways of knowing through a collective intelligence knowledge creation process. This process creates an appreciation for change – leading to a higher degree of comfort with uncertainty and difference.

03.

Agency and Empowerment

Futures Literacy Laboratories are participatory processes designed to include voices from all walks of life. With alternative perspectives, people innovate and diversify their choices. Futures Literacy empowers people to be more creative, open, experimental and innovative.