Showcase of IAF Futures Work

1970s

IAF Brings Foresight on Health to Congress
The Foresight Seminars on Health and Innovation were established in 1978 and are an ongoing public education program developed to educate Congress, public policy makers and the public. The seminars have dealt with many issues, trends and forces shaping health care systems, and how advances in scientific innovation may affect health policy. See more information and reports.

1980s

National Project Studies Future of Work and Health
IAF produced a summary of the major trends in work and health for a report contracted jointly by the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion and The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The resulting book, The Future of Work and Health, was used as the focus of a national assembly of leaders in the field of health promotion in the workplace. The book was subsequently named by American Health magazine as one of the top ten books published in the field of health.

IAF Reports on Impact of Information Revolution
IAF developed a major report, The Information Millennium: Alternative Futures, for the Information Industry Association (IIA). The report produced technological forecasts for the information market and information policy issues. This project developed four scenarios for the future of the information society and the information business. The study created one of the best selling special reports produced by IIA. The effort was prompted by a call from Dun and Bradstreet that IIA help ensure that the information revolution become a boon, not a bane, to humankind.

IAF Creates Alternative Scenarios for Florida
An advisory committee assisted the Florida House of Representatives by identifying and evaluating emerging issues that are likely to significantly affect the future of the state and its citizens. IAF prepared a report that arrayed various emerging trends, issues, and policy options. IAF created scenarios for the year 2000 that were included in a report and summarized in an article, "The Future of Florida: Four Scenarios for the Sunshine State," in the October 1983 issue of The Futurist, a magazine published by the World Future Society.

1990s

A Shared Vision for Health Care: The Belmont Vision
In order to raise the level of the health care debate beyond the issues of finance and access to care, IAF gathered a group of key leaders from inside and outside health care to develop a shared vision of what health care truly should be. The resulting Belmont Vision for Health Care in America has been used by communities, associations, and governments across the U.S. as a standard for judging health care reform efforts, and to assist communities in developing their own visions. One of the main tenets of the Belmont Vision is a call for cost-effective innovation that enables the health care system to make its greatest contribution to health gains. As a follow-up project, IAF brought together experts in the field of health care to create a vision and a set of scenarios for innovation in the 21st century. Their efforts were summarized in an IAF publication, Health Care Innovation: A Vision for the 21st Century.

Nationwide Project Trains State Courts in Vision for the 21st Century
Stimulated by a major 1990 conference in San Antonio and funding from the State Justice Institute, over 30 of the 50 states have had some form of major futures project. IAF, along with the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies, and the National Center for State Courts worked with most of these state futures projects. Entitled Reinventing Courts for the 21st Century: Designing a Vision Process, the report, training guide, and video have enabled courts to accelerate their own organizational transformation. This work led to IAF's direct assistance to court futures efforts in Maine, Florida, Oregon, Missouri, Massachusetts, and Virginia as well as to the federal courts.

DoD and IAF Explore Operations Other Than War
IAF helped the Department of Defense Office of Health Affairs develop scenarios out to 2020 for a whole variety of future circumstances. The study, Operations Other Than War (OOTW) in the 21st Century, is about reinventing one of our nation's largest health systems, the Military Health System (MHS). The key national security challenge for the generation ahead is to shape world events and respond to the full spectrum of engagements in a world threatened by chaos and breakdown. U.S. armed forces will play a critical role in these situations. Health-related capabilities will be an important component of most OOTW missions, and a central component of missions such as humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, peacekeeping and nation building. The Military Health System, not only functions as an HMO with more than 6 million members, but also, as this report points out, will be increasingly involved in using health care and prevention as assets for national security in non-combat operations.

IAF Does Forward Looking Series on Pharmaceutical Industry
IAF developed a series of thought leadership reports on the pharmaceutical industry and the healthcare system in 1998-2000 that forecast opportunities for pharma looking out to 2005. It envisioned changes that have occurred and changes the industry is still pursuing as worthwhile objectives.

American Cancer Society Focuses on Prevention and Control
IAF served as a coach for the scenario team members enabling the American Cancer Society to enhance its ongoing internal capacity to do futures work. IAF also provided the scenario team with an initial training session on futures and scenario building. The two-year project culminated with a symposium gathering the world's leading cancer researchers and the release of a book, Horizons 2013: Longer, Better Life Without Cancer, describing ACS' vision for the future. IAF has continued to work with ACS on such projects as the Cancer Surveillance Futures Project (CSFP) and advising and facilitating ACS to monitor and respond to the future.

White House Examines the Future of Libraries and Information Services
IAF developed a major presentation on the future of libraries that was delivered at the White House Conference on Libraries and Information Services. In addition, IAF staff made presentations to the National Commission on Libraries and Information Services on alternative futures for the information society. For the On-Line Computer Library Center, IAF opened their conference on the future of public libraries. IAF has also created scenario-based strategic planning for the Arlington (VA) Public Library System.

American Public Transit Association Studies Mobility for the 21st Century
The American Public Transit Association (APTA) asked IAF to develop and facilitate a process for exploring long term strategies to expand mobility options and create more livable communities. IAF and APTA created a Task Force on Mobility for the 21st Century that produced two reports. The first, Mobility for the 21st Century, examined problems of contemporary urban development, developed four scenarios of the future of transportation and urban development, and set out a "Vision of Mobility for the 21st Century." The second report, Strategic Goals for the 21st Century, proposed a wide variety of actions for pursuing six strategic goals derived from the vision.

IAF Examines Complementary and Alternative Approaches in Health Care
In The Future of Complementary and Alternative Approaches (CAAs) in U.S. Health Care, IAF examined a wide range of trends bringing about major changes in health and health care and then considered the future of three different CAAs: chiropractic, Oriental medicine, and homeopathy. In The Future of Chiropractic: Optimizing Health Gains, IAF focused specifically on the chiropractic profession. Made possible by a grant from the National Chiropractic Mutual Insurance Company and administered by the Foundation for Chiropractic Education and Research (FCER), the reports include IAF's recommendations for health care systems, policymakers, and health care professionals (both mainstream and alternative).

Report Cites New Approaches for Clinical Development
IAF worked with corporate and academic experts in clinical development to map how to reduce, by 50 percent, the time it takes to develop new medicines while increasing the knowledge produced. The resulting report, Clinical Development 2005, identifies four exciting areas where progress will be made: genetic epidemiology, computer simulation, outcomes research, and community-based clinical information systems. IAF continues to work with both public and private interests to accelerate positive change that brings better medicines to market faster with the knowledge of who is likely to benefit or be harmed by medication.

IAF Supports the Work of the World Health Organization
IAF has been working extensively with World Health Organization (WHO) and its regional office, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) on renewing their vision of "Health for All". This includes visioning sessions for regional meetings with health ministers in Eastern Europe and Latin America. IAF also participated on a committee that explored the horizon for those technologies that could yield the greatest health gain over the next 25 years. In addition, IAF partnered with Trevor Hancock, a leading Canadian futurist, to develop scenarios for global health promotion as part of the preparations for the 4th International Conference on Health Promotion.

2000s

IAF Advises Environmental Protection Agency Foresight
The Office of the CFO within EPA, which is responsible for agency-wide strategic planning, has worked with IAF to encourage foresight in the Agency’s activities. IAF helped develop a “Futures Network” of interested people throughout the agency and provided training workshops for network participants. Four scenarios of the environmental future were developed by teams of Futures Network participants and were used as a framework for ongoing strategic conversations among senior career managers. IAF also helped develop a “Foresight Competition” that solicited future-oriented project ideas from all headquarters and regional offices and funded a set of winning projects. IAF helped the EPA develop a foresight process for selecting goals and strategies for the Agency’s 2006 strategic plan.

Future of Oncology 2012 Identifies Game Changers in Medicine
Through its for-profit subsidiary, Alternative Futures Associates, IAF did a comprehensive examination of key drivers shaping the future of oncology and identified key opportunities to change the game in cancer treatment. This research, for a major pharmaceutical company, engaged the company’s top executives in adopting strategies that positioned it for leadership in oncology.

Futures Scan for the American Society of Association Executives Foundation
IAF assisted the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) Foundation in studying key issues and trends affecting the future of associations in 2000-2001. Over 50 association thought leaders and 25 subject matter experts and futurists worked together in a "Virtual Community of Practice." Using a web-based conferencing system, participants examined changes underway in technology, the economy, and the larger society, and then explored the implications of those changes for associations. Seven issues emerged from this research: meaning matters, learning culture, transparency, inclusivity, generational synergy, glocalization, and living organizations. The ASAE Foundation released the research in the best-selling publication, Exploring the Future: Seven Strategic Conversations That Will Transform Your Association.

Scoping Social Science Research Needs for the UK
IAF led four major futures projects for the Economic and Social Research Council in the UK. A study of rural futures recommended priorities for long-term economic and social research to support a process of rural development where economic growth, environmental sustainability and social cohesion come together in a mutually reinforcing way. A study of genomics identified emerging opportunities and threats through forecasts and scenarios to help define a research agenda for a preferred future. A third report explored the integration of social science research into the Framework Programme used by the European Union to determine science and technology policy and prioritize research funding. A fourth report identified important areas of economic and social research to support the transition to a sustainable energy economy. In these ESRC projects, IAF worked with University of Manchester's Institute of Innovation Research.

Safe Kids Worldwide Strategic Framework
In 2004 the leaders of Safe Kids Worldwide worked with IAF to develop a strategic framework to transform the predominantly U.S. organization into a unified global network. More than 450 coalitions in 16 countries brought together health and safety experts, educators, corporations, foundations, governments and volunteers to educate and protect families. Safe Kids unified its U.S. organization and its international network into one global entity to pursue an audacious goal of reducing childhood deaths from accidental injury by 25 percent in its member countries by 2015.

U.S. Forest Service Eastern Region Vision and Strategic Framework
U.S. Forest Service Eastern Region selected IAF to facilitate creating a new vision and strategic framework to plan its legacy for the next generation during the forest service’s centennial year in 2005. IAF identified seven strategic issues critical to the agency’s future: ecological integrity, ecosystem services, a larger land ethic, partnership agency, adaptive public servant, electronic forest, and global and local economics. Eastern Region leaders created a shared vision based on “Courageous Conservation” and set five audacious goals, intermediate goals and next steps that will guide performance-based budgeting and action plans for 2007 and beyond.

National Cancer Institute Nanotechnology Retreat
The NCI Office of Technology and Industrial Relations wanted to bring a diverse group to a retreat intended to steer the NCI Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer. IAF interviewed the NCI Alliance leaders to set the right agenda and facilitated a six-hour meeting that provided ideas, goals and recommendations for action to the NCI for cancer nanotechnology. The meeting included a guest speaker from the White House along with scientists from the NCI and Harvard. Along with the design and facilitation, IAF produced a report that NCI made available to participants.

IAF Futurists Look at the Future of Biomedical R&D in 2029
The next 25 years will see large-scale changes across the spectrum of biomedical research and development activities. Dramatic advances are likely to include fundamental knowledge of disease processes, as well as a variety of new research tools. IAF, with funding from Pfizer, explored these major developments and how they can be most effectively utilized to create an ethical future for healthcare. This comprehensive scan forecasts healthcare innovations including a health advocate avatar that facilitates knowledge exchange among individuals and healthcare systems. More on the project and the final report, The 2029 Project: Achieving an Ethical Future in Biomedical R&D is available at http://www.altfutures.com/2029.asp.

London Declaration for Consumer Led Patient Safety
IAF played a key role in facilitating patient advocates from twenty countries in the First Patients Workshop for the World Health Organization (WHO) World Alliance for Patient Safety (WAPS) in 2005. The patient advocates drafted a powerful statement of their intentions for patient safety that the WHO plans to distribute worldwide as the “London Declaration”. IAF Vice President Jonathan Peck, who is a board member for Consumers Advancing Patient Safety in the U.S., guided the participants in writing the declaration.