By Amy Webb
PCI Community member, Amy Webb, introduced her proposal for a new “US Office of Strategic Forecasting” in a presentation to Senate staff. Her paper, “A National Office for Strategic Foresight Anchored in Critical Science and Technologies,” was produced for the Technology and Public Policy Project at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford.
“Despite an abundance of technical experts across its agencies, the federal government lacks a centralized office charged with long-range, comprehensive, streamlined planning to address critical science and technology developments. The status quo risks misalignment between agencies and redundant strategic work. At the outset of the next presidential term, the President should create a new, centralized office championing strategic foresight. This will involve leadership in strategic processes using data-driven models to analyze plausible futures, continually evaluating macro sources of change, finding emerging trends, and mapping the trajectory and velocity of changes. Focused on providing authoritative, unbiased insights to the executive branch, it should facilitate forward-leaning research, knowledge dissemination and capabilities building via ongoing strategic conversations, experiential learning, and rigorous quantitative and qualitative proceedings that result in concrete actions.“
Amy Webb is a quantitative futurist. She is a professor of strategic foresight at the NYU Stern School of Business and the Founder of the Future Today Institute, a leading foresight and strategy firm that helps leaders and their organizations prepare for complex futures.
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