The foresight framework
PoliRural+ plans with foresight: read the drivers of change, agree where the region wants to land, then get the people who hold the budgets to commit.
How does the PoliRural+ foresight framework (D3.1) turn a discussion about the future into an action plan?
It runs a bottom-up process with beneficiaries and a top-down process with implementing actors in parallel. It moves from divergent exploration of drivers of change (STEEPV, ranked to 2–5 priority trends) to a convergent agreement on a vision, an action plan and a financed roadmap.
- Foresight is a structured way of thinking about the future; the target is financed action, not a report
- Two parallel tracks: bottom-up with beneficiaries, top-down with implementing actors
- Drivers of change are listed under STEEPV and narrowed to 2–5 priority trends
- D3.1 warns against 'toolheads': the method is a social process learnt by doing
Foresight as a working method, not a forecast
main tellingdepth: standard2 min markdown
Objective O1 commits PoliRural+ to a foresight-based framework for interregional cooperation. D3.1 defines foresight as a structured approach to thinking about the future: understanding how the world is changing and what steps a region needs to thrive despite the threats and to build on the opportunities. The test it sets is blunt. The intended result of a plan is “not a ‘report,’ but adequately financed action being implemented at local level.”
Two tracks in parallel
Foresight work in PoliRural+ is highly participative and runs two processes at once (D3.1, Overview):
- a bottom-up process with the beneficiaries, the people who will benefit from the measures;
- a top-down process with the actors, the institutions that must implement them.
Emphasis shifts from beneficiaries at the start to actors at the end. Who those people are, and how they are brought together, is the multi-actor approach and the quintuple helix of chapter 9.
Diverge, then converge
The work opens with a divergent phase: judgement is suspended and participants learn how change is happening. The main tool is a drivers’ analysis that lists trends, drivers, enablers and barriers under six STEEPV headings:
| Heading | Examples D3.1 gives |
|---|---|
| Social | age pyramid, gender, family organisation |
| Technological | road, rail, rural broadband |
| Economic | cost of living, housing, wage stagnation, energy costs |
| Environmental | climate, soil, water, biodiversity, plant and animal disease |
| Political | new EU legislation, CAP reform, Green Transition |
| Values | concern for the planet, food movements, cooperatives, privacy |
PoliRural left an inventory of 64 drivers across these six categories as a starting point. Global megatrends get localised: climate change becomes coastal flooding, landslides or crop loss in this region. Unfamiliar topics get a deep-dive workshop. Then the group ranks factors, by simple lists, a two-axis grid or multi-criteria software, down to 2 to 5 priority trends, “certainly not 15 or 21”.
The convergent phase turns that understanding into a shared vision and then a plan (see Regional Action Plans).
Not a recipe
D3.1 warns against “toolheads”, people who follow a checklist without thinking. It uses John Seddon’s term and the quality-management tradition of Deming and Ohno. Creating a plan is a social process, learnt by doing, so the document advises teams to find a mentor and to use phone calls and meetings rather than long emails.
Its newest element is Work Awareness Journaling: teams record how they work, so that low-code/no-code AI and automation tools from WP2 and WP4 can be co-designed to take on the heavy drafting, ranking and evidence-gathering. The updated methodology, D3.2, is due in month 36.
Related
- Leads to: System dynamics in rural policy
Sources
- D3.1 RAP Methodology, Executive Summary, Overview of the RAP Methodology, Toolheads Beware, Phase II: Drivers' Analysis — PDF
- Project fact sheet (Grant Agreement 101136910, facts as published on CORDIS): objective O1