Strategic Foresight Leaders Program

About the Program

Strategic foresight is a research methodology used to study, explore, and anticipate future change. It can be utilized to contemplate emerging trends and understand their influence on a range of domains, inform risk analysis within complex social, economic, and political systems, and shape public policy and strategic planning. In the Strategic Foresight Leaders Program, participants will acquire experiential training on several strategic foresight techniques, including horizons scanning and weak signal identification; insight and change driver development; influence diagrams, influence cascades, and futures wheel; systems and domain mapping; scenario planning; preferred future visioning; and assumptions generation and testing.

Who Should Attend?

This program is designed for:

• Senior analysts, directors, andsenior managers;  
• Executives and emerging leaders; 
• Intelligence officers; and  
• Public policy researchers  

What You Will Learn

Participants will:

• Learn when and how to apply different foresight tools and techniques to systematically contemplate the future of various domains (e.g., Geopolitical Uncertainty; Climate Change; Emerging Disruptive Technology),
• Improve their strategic planning capabilities by better appreciating how complex political and strategic issues might evolve over the coming decade(s), and 
• Acquire a better understanding of how foresight can inform public policy planning in times of deep uncertainty, and an appreciation of where foresight is currently being applied within Canadian public policy.

Program Takeaways

By the conclusion of the program, participants will:

• Acquire a theoretical and practical understanding of strategic foresight and futures methodology, 
• Know when and how to apply a variety of foresight tools and techniques, including, horizons scanning; insight and change driver development; influence diagrams, influence cascades, and futures wheel; systems and domain mapping; scenario planning; and future visioning and assumptions generation and testing, and 
• Improve their ability to think creatively about future challenges and opportunities.

Program Facilitators

Alex Wilner

Facilitator

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Alex Wilner

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Facilitator

Dr. Alex Wilner is an Associate Professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, and the Director of the Infrastructure Protection and International Security program, at Carleton University. He teaches and writes on strategic foresight, deterrence theory, cybersecurity, national security policy, and emerging technology. His books include Deterring Rational Fanatics (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), Deterring Terrorism: Theory and Practice (eds., Stanford University Press, 2012), and Deterrence by Denial: Theory and Practice (Cambria Press, 2021). Among his several dozen journal publications, his research on foresight includes an assessment of Canada’s emerging foresight landscape published in Foresight (2020), a review of foresight’s application to Canadian international development assistance in Development Policy Review (2024), a critical assessment of Canada’s foresight-to-standardization framework in International Journal (2024), a study of Canadian “Cyber Futures” published with the Defence & Security Foresight Group (2020), and a scientific exploration of scanning for value changes, published in Futures & Foresight Science (2022). Prior to joining Carleton, he was recruited into public service through the Recruitment of Policy Leaders (RPL) program; he worked at Policy Horizons Canada (2014-2015), where he gained invaluable experience applying foresight to public policy. Alongside his academic work, he consultants regularly with government departments seeking to establish foresight capacity. Since 2017, he has trained over 1400 public servants in strategic foresight and has assisted several government departments and agencies establish foresight units and teams, including at ECCC, GAC, AAFC, SCC, IDRC, NRCan, PHAC, DND, the Department of Justice, and members of Canada’s intelligence community.

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