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The purpose of this paper is to lay a theoretical basis for discussion of the ways by which organized foresight can be employed in the service of pro‐poor objectives. This is in line with the fundamental mandate of the Rockefeller Foundation, dating from its establishment.

The objective was to capture concepts that the author has been developing and teaching under the heading of “Forward engagement”. Forward engagement is a particular approach to anticipatory governance, drawing upon complexity theory for assessment of issues requiring government policy; network theory for proposed reforms to legacy systems of governance to enable them to manage complexity under conditions of accelerating change; and cybernetic theory to propose feedback systems to allow ongoing measurement of the performance of policies against expectations. For more detail, visit www.forwardengagement.org.

The paper sketches out some core elements of a system for anticipatory governance.

In addition to the primary findings of forward engagement (see web site), this paper argues that foresight and anticipatory concepts can play a vital role, not only for governance in the United States, but for governance in developing countries: perhaps even more so, because such countries have narrower margins for response to significant changes of circumstance.

This paper aims to review the information management aspects of the early months of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) coronavirus 19 outbreak. It shows that the transition from epidemic to the pandemic was caused partly by poor management of information that was publicly available in January 2020.

The approach combines public domain epidemic data with economic, demographic, health, social and political data and investigates how information was managed by governments. It includes case studies of early-stage information management, from countries with high and low coronavirus disease 2019 impacts (as measured by deaths per million).

The reasons why the information was not acted upon appropriately include “dark side” information behaviours (Stone et al., 2019). Many errors and misjudgements could have been avoided by using learnings from previous epidemics, particularly the 1918-1919 flu epidemic when international travel (mainly of troops in First World War) was a prime mode of spreading. It concludes that if similar outbreaks are not to turn into pandemics, much earlier action is needed, mainly closing borders and locking-down.

The research is based on what was known at the time of writing, when the pandemic’s exact origin was uncertain, when some statistics about actions and results were unavailable and when final results were unknown.

Governments faced with early warning signs or pandemics must act much faster.

If the next virus is as infectious as SARS-CoV-2 but much more fatal, the world faces disastrous consequences if most governments act as slowly as this time.

This is one of the first analyses of information management practices relating to the pandemic’s early stages.

How to derive policy implications from five future scenarios of transformed research and innovation (R&I) systems? This paper analyzes methodological and content issues of five future scenarios of transformed R&I systems. The aim of this paper is to provide an outlook on strategic policies capable of facilitating or moderating these transformative changes in R&I practices is discussed in light of overarching intentions to foster “responsible” ambitions (in Europe and beyond, discussed as responsible research and innovation, RRI).

The paper elaborates a four-step methodology to assess the scenario’s policy implications: first, by articulating the scenario implications for six core dimensions of R&I systems; second, an RRI assessment framework is developed to assess in each scenario opportunities and limitations for transforming R&I systems towards responsibility goals; the third involves a cross-scenario analysis of similarities and differences between the scenarios, allowing the identification of robust policy options that make sense in more than one scenario. The last analytical step includes again the richness of the individual scenario assessments aiming to provide a broader outlook on transformative policy orientations.

The paper concludes with outlining the contours of a future-responsible R&I system together with some suggestions for transformative policy orientations that aim to govern the R&I system towards such a future, as a source of inspiration and reflection.

The analysis is based on five future scenarios that do not systematically cover future developments external to the R&I system.

An outlook of strategic policies capable of facilitating or moderating these transformative changes in R&I practices is discussed in light of the overarching European Union goal of encouraging the performance of RRI.

This paper provides inspirational anticipatory strategic intelligence for fostering the responsible ambitions of research with and for society.

This study aims to explore the utility of anticipatory adaptation to climate variability and related livelihood sensitivities in rural African contexts using the case of Mbire district situated in the mid-Zambezi valley region of Zimbabwe. The provision of decadal climate information (up to ten years), as part of an anticipatory adaptation package, is at the centre of analysis.

The study used semi-structured and key informant interviews, with a total of 45 semi-structured interviews being conducted with randomly selected long-term communal farmers in the case study area. Whilst data from semi-structured interviews was arranged in Microsoft Excel, thematic analysis was used in analyzing all data.

Anticipatory adaptation and decadal climate projections are shown to potentially enhance flexibility in adaptation planning vis- à-vis responding to climate variability and other challenges, as well as reduce chances of maladaptation in responding to climate challenges in the context of multiple and reinforcing stresses and shocks.

Anticipatory adaptation, with its three main pillars of future analysis, flexibility of strategies and proactive action, is emerging as key in assisting adaptation planning, the harnessing of opportunities and decision-making vis- à-vis responding to climate uncertainties and related livelihood sensitivities. Yet there have not been much empirically grounded analyses in understanding the role of anticipatory adaptation in rural Africa. This study therefore adds to evidence-based analyses towards understanding the role and utility of anticipatory adaptation in local communities in Africa.

This study attempts to answer the question: “how are the two drivers, accountability focus and organizational learning, independently and interactively associated with public agencies’ proactive policy orientation?” The first driver is the multiple accountabilities that public agencies pursue: (1) bureaucratic, (2) legal, (3) professional and (4) political. The second driver is the organizational learning activities of public agencies: (1) socialization, (2) externalization, (3) combination and (4) internalization.

For data, 800 respondents from the public agencies in South Korea were surveyed.

The analysis provided several findings: (1) the discretionary accountabilities (professional and political) have a greater positive influence on the proactive policy orientation; (2) the conventional accountabilities (legal and bureaucratic) tend to have negative impacts on the proactive policy orientation and (3) among the four types of accountability, legal accountability can be more significantly complemented by organizational learning activities, which can enable both visionary and realistic administration in a balanced manner.

This study provides a unique insight on how organizational proactivity can be ensured through the interactions of organizational accountabilities and organizational learning.