Foresight – Government Office for Science

On Friday I also was able to visit the Foresight team, which operates from within the Government Office for Science. I met with Mary Lawrence, Project Manager, who was very generous with her time. Mary explained the history of the organisation, and the full breadth of the work they do. The model is an interesting one, in that there is a specialised team of futures thinkers within Foresight, and they are contracted to do work by other government departments. This means that the expertise they have is shared across the board, enabling all parts of the public sector to integrate long-term thinking. Mary also told me about an ex-Foresight employee who now works in the public sector in Wellington, so I hope to catch up with him to discuss the potential for such a model to work in New Zealand. This meeting was very useful for the work we are doing in Project 2058, especially the upcoming Science paper.