Futures Thinking Methodologies – Options Relevant for “schooling for Tomorrow” by Jonas

There are numerous papers and books on methodologies and use of future-oriented work: But many of these studies either focus on only one methodology and/or are not very user friendly in their presentation of the methodologies described. The aim of this paper is therefore to give a comprehensive and use/user oriented view of a range of methodologies within area of research and studies of trends and driving forces that may shape the future. In this particular context, the term ‘methodology’ covers both the actual methods used and the approach to the design of a future study (i.e. how different methods may be combined.). The main theme will be scenario development, but since this is a quite ambiguous concept it is often hard to draw the line between scenario methodologies and other future-oriented methodologies. We will therefore not only focus on scenario methodology per se, but also on the wide variety of futureoriented methodologies that are often used as a basis for scenario development.