Search results

The purpose of this paper is to study the user experiences of the futures wheel method to investigate its suitability to advance futures thinking in the real estate field.

The user experiences of the futures wheel method are investigated through questionnaire answers of 114 master’s level students and real estate experts taking part in future wheel workshops.

The futures wheel method could enhance future-oriented thinking and decision-making in the real estate field. The respondents see futures thinking as an important skill and recognize several advantages concerning the method.

The futures wheel method bears great potential to be used in the real estate sector and it could be a fruitful addition to the curriculums at different education levels in real estate studies.

Futures thinking is essential when aiming for sustainable decisions in the real estate field which again would benefit the whole surrounding society.

This paper is the first published paper concentrating on the user experiences of the future wheel method in the real estate sector. The benefits and the disadvantages of the method are investigated but also the attitudes indicating the potential of the method to be successfully adopted in the field are analyzed.

The purpose of this study is to propose an innovative and efficient process in urban policy-making that combines a divergent and creative method with a convergent and strategic one. At the same time, the purpose is also to propose a useful innovation to enforce the usability of both methods. On the one hand, mission-oriented policies run the risk of being overly focused on the present and of not being able to develop preparedness in organization. On the other hand, scenario development has the reverse problem it often does not point out how to use scenario narratives to inform and devise short-term strategic actions.

The paper proposes an innovative methodological approach, the mission-oriented scenarios, which hybridizes Mazzucato's mission-oriented public policy framework with Jim Dator's Manoa school four futures method. The proposed methodological innovation emerges from a urban foresight academic-led project carried out in the context of the Metropolitan City of Turin, Italy, where a first application of the mission-oriented scenarios was tested on six different focal issues (from reindustrialization to cultural policies) and the scenario narratives were used as sources for the grounding of 12 missions and 48 strategic actions towards 2030.

Mission-oriented scenarios can contribute to the generation of more sustainable and inclusive urban public policies. This methodological proposal is based on an original mix of knowledge exchange procedures borrowed from methodological approaches with different backgrounds: the mission-oriented and the archetypal scenarios. Their conjunction could support the formulation of ambitious yet pragmatic policies, giving a plurality of actors the opportunity to act and establish fruitful and lasting partnerships.

The paper reconstructs one of the first urban foresight projects carried out in a major Italian city by two prestigious universities and exposes a methodological innovation resulting from reflection on the strengths and weaknesses of the project, which opens the door to the development of a new scenario technique.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and prioritize the positive and negative impacts of tourism on the process of tourism growth at a national scale in Iran, by taking into account the reviews of previous studies, views of experts and structural analysis.

In this investigation, structural analysis technique has been used to identify the correlation between variables by using mix method data analysis. By using cross-impact analysis (N × N integer matrix) in the form of the Micmac method, the economic, sociocultural and environmental factors have been evaluated.

The results of the distribution of factors in the coordinate axes and the graphs between them indicate their features, and for reaching a sustainable system of tourism development, at first, priority should be given to the negative influential factors, especially the environmental fields, and then the focus should be on the decrease of the dual and risk variables as they cannot be anticipated.

For the rapid growth of tourism in many countries, governments ensure that policies have been heeded in designing and preparing general plans of the country to understand how the development trend is moving on. In this respect, arisen impacts of tourism system are one of the important issues during the development path and in the field of tourism future. Because of the complexity and broadness of tourism activities, these impacts have also many interconnected dimensions that should also be considered while studying tourism impacts.

The aims and pedagogies in the field of science education are evolving because of global sustainability crises. School science is increasingly concerned with responsible agency and value-based transformation. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to argue that perspectives and methods from the field of futures studies are needed to meet the new transformative aims of science education for sustainable development.

This paper analyses some contemporary challenges in science education and gives reasons for introducing a futures perspective into science classrooms. The suggestion is illustrated by reviewing some results, published elsewhere, on future-oriented activities trialled within the European Union project “I SEE” and students’ experiences on them.

Recent research has shown that future-oriented science learning activities, involving systems thinking, scenario development and backcasting, can let students broaden their futures perceptions, imagine alternatives and navigate uncertainty. Practising futures thinking in the context of contemporary science offers synergies through shared perspectives on uncertainty, probabilities and creative thinking.

This paper highlights the relevance of the futures field for science education. Future-oriented activities appear as promising tools in science education for fostering sustainability, agency and change. Yet, further work is needed to integrate futures aspects into science curricula. To that end, the paper calls for collaboration between the fields of futures studies and science education.

The natural environment is facing unprecedented times owing to rising temperatures from carbon emissions, which travel-related industries contribute significantly towards. The recent global COVID-19 outbreak should be a wake-up call for the industry, as vulnerabilities have been laid bare. The current challenges should be used as a motivation to change the meaning of travel to support the global warming crisis. This paper aims emphasis that, by means of new stories, new values, beliefs and ultimately travel behaviours can be rewritten.

This study embraces a pragmatic approach to research. To ensure plausibility, credibility and relevance, the research carried out multi-disciplinary analysis of secondary data, information, knowledge and draws on current developing trends.

The travel community needs to take responsibility and start reducing its carbon footprint and as carbon neutrality is increasingly a global priority. Accordingly, this research considers potential future travel-related behaviours that could support more carbon-neutral travel. Significantly, it notes how the COVID-19 outbreak has offered insights into potential positive changes. To benefit from these changes, new stories for industry providers are necessary to encourage more carbon-neutral travel practices.

This paper offers timely and original discussions on the future of travel as a result of COVID-19 impacts. It draws on the power of storytelling as a means of achieving behavioural change in the travel community to support the challenge of climate change.

Crises are major events or periods faced by individuals, groups and society. This paper aims to explore the value of facilitating (un)learning in and from crises. Educators have a key role in building futures literacy (FL) for dealing with uncertainties, understanding emergence and responding to rapid, complex change. Integrating crisis learning as part of FL is important for enhanced anticipatory and crisis responses.

Adapting from causal layered analysis (CLA) methodology, experimental virtual futures workshops were designed and hosted during the coronavirus pandemic. Participants discussed COVID-19 crisis responses and imagined the “new normal”. Sessions explored mindsets applied to make sense and derive meaning from the crisis, myriad ways of adapting to uncertainty, as well as lenses used to imagine post-crisis futures.

In the exploratory and participatory CLA exercises, participants shared on the COVID-19 pandemic and imagined post-crisis futures. Related hopes and fears concerned self, collectives and nature. Overall, despite the dramatic nature of crises, opportunities exist for learning and transformation. Educators play a central role in heightening awareness about the dynamics and nature of crises, and integrating crisis learning into FL, as important and transformative capabilities.

In exploratory dialogues, the “new normal” was applied as a frame for uncertainty. The workshops were hosted during the COVID-19 pandemic as a specific type of crisis. The workshop design is intended to be replicable in various crisis contexts and for iterative rounds with diverse groups. Therefore, futures images exemplify context-specific crisis-time sentiments. The findings presented here do not aim to be generalizable. They are liable to change across different crises, as a crisis evolves and across diverse stakeholders.

Dramatic change and crisis events offer potential moments for development, advancement and transformation. Educators have an important role in facilitating (un)learning in and from crises, elevating FL and expanding futures consciousness. The CLA methodology can assist educators to engage with multiple facets, layers and dimensions of crises. By considering crises intently, educators can help in anticipating emergence, imagining and preparing for diverse alternatives.

The contemporary world is volatile, complex and ambiguous volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA), as revealed by multiple crises. Crises can spotlight new possibilities and horizons and may be possible turning points. The COVID-19 is an example of a crisis disruption, which provoked thinking and contributed to action about novel prospects. To realise transformative change however, it is important to integrate crisis learning as part of FL, and here educators are an important influence.

Integrating crisis learning into FL is proposed to improve responses to the rapid pace of change and uncertainty as well as to boost crisis preparedness. As part of this, there is value in applying and developing techniques such as CLA that help explore and question assumptions, to understand diverse, possible and transformed futures. This way, we can explore, imagine and expand new horizons.

Eco-social crises such as the loss of biodiversity call for transformative learning. This study analyzes the prospects of social media in learning about nature.

The study is placed in the intersection of science and technology studies, futures studies, environmental social sciences, and environmental humanities. The study draws on a qualitative case study of a mycologists' Facebook group. The empirical material was collected through digital ethnography.

Social media provides opportunities for learning about nature for many people. However, specialized naturalist social media groups are increasingly geared towards citizen science. The development may fragment the online naturalist cultures and narrow the scope for learning.

Insights from a single case study cannot be broadly generalized. However, the case highlights significant features to consider in promoting collective learning in social media in the future.

Much of the previous research has focused on social media uses in the formal education of youth. This study addresses social media in informal and collective learning, specifically about nature.

With the aid of naturalistic simulations, this paper aims to investigate human behavior during manual and autonomous driving modes in complex scenarios.

The simulation environment is established by integrating virtual reality interface with a micro-simulation model. In the simulation, the vehicle autonomy is developed by a framework that integrates artificial neural networks and genetic algorithms. Human-subject experiments are carried, and participants are asked to virtually sit in the developed autonomous vehicle (AV) that allows for both human driving and autopilot functions within a mixed traffic environment.

Not surprisingly, the inconsistency is identified between two driving modes, in which the AV’s driving maneuver causes the cognitive bias and makes participants feel unsafe. Even though only a shallow portion of the cases that the AV ended up with an accident during the testing stage, participants still frequently intervened during the AV operation. On a similar note, even though the statistical results reflect that the AV drives under perceived high-risk conditions, rarely an actual crash can happen. This suggests that the classic safety surrogate measurement, e.g. time-to-collision, may require adjustment for the mixed traffic flow.

Understanding the behavior of AVs and the behavioral difference between AVs and human drivers are important, where the developed platform is only the first effort to identify the critical scenarios where the AVs might fail to react.

This paper attempts to fill the existing research gap in preparing close-to-reality tools for AV experience and further understanding human behavior during high-level autonomous driving.

This work aims to systematically analyze the inconsistency in driving patterns between manual and autopilot modes in various driving scenarios (i.e. multiple scenes and various traffic conditions) to facilitate user acceptance of AV technology.

A close-to-reality tool for AV experience and AV-related behavioral study. A systematic analysis in relation to the inconsistency in driving patterns between manual and autonomous driving. A foundation for identifying the critical scenarios where the AVs might fail to react.