Each record describes something a country built that the indicators do not capture. The source provides the published number; the mechanism is our interpretation.
Scores describe outcomes. These records describe how a country acted, what it needed and what happened. 742 of 742 records include a mechanism. They do not affect scores.
Brazil created a public agricultural research corporation in 1973 to make acidic tropical soils productive, kept it funded across every change of government since, and cereal production rose from 46.5 million tonnes in 2000 to 155.9 million in 2023.
155,877,082 tonnes, cereal production, 2023. World Bank, from FAO, retrieved 2026-08-26.
The move, and what it needed
A public research corporation with its own budget line, staffed by researchers sent abroad to train and then brought back, mandated against one specific national constraint rather than research in general.
Preconditions
A named constraint worth fifty years of work
Budget continuity across governments
A private sector able to absorb the results
Where else it has been used: The model of a mission-specific public research corporation is highly transferable. The fifty years of funding continuity is the part nobody can procure.
Limits: Production is an outcome and the credit is shared with land expansion, subsidised credit and private plant breeding, so this number cannot separate the research from the rest. It also cannot see the cost: much of the expansion came from converting cerrado and forest. What the record actually evidences is fifty years of continuity in a public research mandate, which is the part no dataset measures.
๐ณ๐ฑNetherlandssince 2010still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
The Netherlands legislated a standing programme against flooding and fresh-water shortage, run by an independent Delta Commissioner and paid from a dedicated Delta Fund that expects 27.4 billion euros to be available through 2050.
Parliament wrote the Delta Act: a permanent commissioner proposes a rolling programme each year, statutory safety standards make the work non-optional, and a ring-fenced fund keeps the money out of annual budget fights.
Preconditions
A shared national threat no party disputes
Water authorities with their own tax base, older than the state
Fiscal room to ring-fence a billion a year for decades
Where else it has been used: Bangladesh's Delta Plan 2100 was written with Dutch help and copies the programme form. The statutory fund and the commissioner's independence are the parts that travel least, because they require a legislature to give up annual control.
Limits: A budget is an input: the number shows money committed, not risk reduced, and the same page says 30.8 billion is needed, so the fund is currently short of its own task. Spending on water at this scale is also ordinary for the Netherlands, which has run such works for a century. What the record evidences is the institutional form, a legally required programme, commissioner and fund that outlive governments, not the size of the number.
๐ง๐ทBrazilsince 1991still operatingbears on Long-horizon research commitments
Law 8.248/1991 tied information-technology incentives to annual research, development and innovation investment of at least 5 percent of eligible domestic gross revenue, creating a predictable regime for sectoral capability.
The state exchanges a sector-specific incentive for commitments to domestic research, development, training and innovation, giving firms a reason to make longer-horizon plans within a stable policy frame.
Preconditions
A government able to target fiscal incentives at a defined industrial sector
Firms with enough domestic revenue to sustain the investment requirement
Administrative capacity to review projects and monitor the obligation
Limits: The legal investment requirement is an input, not evidence of research quality, exports or firm growth. The regime is narrow, has been amended repeatedly and creates a renewal pressure that makes continuity part of the case rather than a settled result.
๐ง๐ทBrazilsince 2001still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
Created in 2001, the Centro de Gestรฃo e Estudos Estratรฉgicos was designed to produce prospective studies and long-term recommendations for Brazilian science, technology and innovation policy, with 273 researchers and specialists signing its creation record.
Government creates a distinct organization to turn evidence and expert networks into long-horizon options, giving policymakers a place to ask what future conditions require before a crisis sets the agenda.
Preconditions
A ministry willing to give a foresight body room to examine its own assumptions
A network of researchers and institutions that can contribute expertise
A route from prospective studies into planning and policy decisions
Limits: The creation record and a mandate for prospective studies show institutional intent, not whether foresight changes decisions or survives political pressure. CGEE operates within the science and technology policy system, so its reach does not cover every part of government.
๐ธ๐ฌSingaporesince 2009still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
Singapore established the Centre for Strategic Futures in 2009 inside the Prime Minister's Office strategy system to study blind spots, run long-term futures research and develop foresight methods.
A central strategy unit gives government a standing place to examine emerging risks and challenge assumptions before those risks become immediate policy demands.
Preconditions
A centre of government willing to receive uncomfortable analysis
Access to policy teams that can act on long-horizon findings
Methods and networks that keep foresight connected to evidence
Limits: Creating a foresight unit shows a formal capability for examining uncertainty, not whether its work changes budgets, policies or decisions. The centre describes its own mandate and does not publish a counterfactual for decisions made without it.
The United Kingdom's 2008 Climate Change Act made five-year emissions budgets a standing legal cycle set twelve years ahead, and by July 2026 seven budgets covered 2008 through 2042 while the first three had been met.
Parliament requires each government to set a quantified five-year ceiling twelve years in advance, receive independent advice, publish a delivery plan and report the final account, converting a distant target into a recurring decision and scrutiny cycle.
Preconditions
A national emissions inventory stable enough to support legal accounting
An independent body with the standing and expertise to challenge government plans
A legislature willing to bind successive governments to decisions beyond one term
Where else it has been used: France and several other countries later adopted carbon-budget frameworks. What travels is the rolling statutory cycle; a target without independent advice, advance budgets and final accounts keeps the name but drops the institutional work.
Limits: A statutory cycle and three budgets met show continuity and compliance with a national accounting framework, not that the framework caused the emissions reductions or that budgets four to seven will be delivered. Territorial accounts omit emissions embodied in imports, and government reports its own compliance even though an independent Climate Change Committee advises and scrutinises it.
๐ฏ๐ตJapansince 2011still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
After the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident, Japan adopted a government-led mid-and-long-term decommissioning roadmap and set completion at roughly 30โ40 years after cold shutdown, treating the work as continuous risk reduction rather than a one-off rebuild.
Japan put the government in front of the operator, broke an unprecedented nuclear clean-up into staged milestones, invited international review and treated each step as risk reduction while preserving a long horizon for work that cannot be rushed safely.
Preconditions
A state capable of holding responsibility across electoral cycles and coordinating the operator, regulator and local communities
Technical institutions and international reviewers able to test milestones under deep uncertainty
A funding and monitoring system that can keep safety work moving while revising methods as evidence changes
Where else it has been used: Long-horizon decommissioning roadmaps travel to other countries facing nuclear accidents or legacy hazards, but Fukushima makes the precondition explicit: a plan must be a living risk-reduction system with independent review, not a distant completion date.
Limits: A roadmap horizon is a planning commitment, not evidence that decommissioning will finish on time, within cost or with public consent. The technical condition of fuel debris and contaminated water remains uncertain, and the government and operator report progress within their own programme. The case measures willingness to plan across decades and revise stages, not successful completion.
๐จ๐ณChinasince 2023still operatingbears on Long-horizon research commitments
China's National Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Finance reported 225.91 billion yuan in basic-research expenditure in 2023, equal to 6.77% of national R&D spending.
China's statistical and science ministries separate basic, applied and experimental R&D in a recurring national account, while public funders protect a basic-research tranche alongside mission-oriented programmes. That makes the long-horizon allocation visible in the same frame as industrial development spending.
Preconditions
A national R&D classification that distinguishes basic research from applied work and experimental development
Stable public funders and multi-year grants that can sustain uncertain work beyond an annual policy cycle
A statistical system able to collect comparable expenditure returns from firms, universities and government institutes
Where else it has been used: A basic-research share travels only with a classification and funding system behind it: a percentage without stable grant institutions can be re-labelled spending rather than a durable long-horizon capability.
Limits: The share measures spending classification, not research quality, scientific independence, peer-review quality, frontier breakthroughs or the eventual use of results. The communiquรฉ uses national administrative statistics, reports preliminary GDP inputs and excludes Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, so it is not a complete measure of every Chinese research activity.
๐ต๐นPortugalsince 2022still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
Portugal's PLANAPP operates as a Centre of Government body for evidence-based foresight, planning, monitoring, evaluation and impact analysis; its REPLAN network lists five multisectoral team remits and held its inaugural meeting on 23 November 2022.
5 team remits, named multisectoral replan team remits, 2022-11-23. PLANAPP, REPLAN presentation, retrieved 2026-09-02.
The move, and what it needed
Portugal placed foresight, planning, monitoring and evaluation in a centre-of-government body, then connected ministry planning units through REPLAN so cross-cutting work could be commissioned and reviewed across departmental boundaries.
Preconditions
A centre-of-government mandate that can convene ministries and set common planning instruments
Planning and foresight units inside each governmental area with staff able to join joint work
Shared indicators, evaluation practice and a route from foresight outputs into budget and policy decisions
Where else it has been used: A foresight network travels when it has a convening mandate and a decision route; a named unit without ministry participation or a budget link is only an advisory label.
Limits: The five is a count of named remits on PLANAPP's presentation page, not a verified staffing or output measure; the same page describes the teams as four before listing five. The record therefore evidences a formal foresight-and-coordination architecture and its inaugural date, not continuity across governments, the quality of forecasts or whether advice changed decisions.
๐ฟ๐ฆSouth Africasince 2012still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
South Africa's Department of Higher Education and Training ran a Labour Market Intelligence Programme from 2012, published the fifth iteration of its national occupations-in-high-demand list by April 2024, and identified 138 occupations for the emerging hydrogen-economy value chain.
DHET institutionalised a research cycle that combines labour-market data, sector studies and consultations with business, labour and government, then turns the findings into recurring occupations-in-demand lists and skills assessments for education planning.
Preconditions
A department with authority to connect labour-market evidence to post-school enrolment and funding decisions
Stable research financing and partnerships with public research organisations and universities
Stakeholder channels that let employers and labour organisations challenge or refine the forecast
Where else it has been used: Foresight travels when a recurring evidence cycle changes a budget, curriculum or visa rule; publishing another list without tracing decisions that used it is only a report series.
Limits: The programme's own ministerial account reports its outputs, and a list of occupations is a planning instrument rather than proof that enrolment, funding or curricula changed. The source describes the second phase and a third phase planned for 2025; the record therefore establishes a recurring foresight function and delivered reports, not the quality or current use of every forecast.
๐ซ๐ฎFinlandsince 1993still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
Every Finnish government since 1993 has submitted a Report on the Future to Parliament, answered by a standing Committee for the Future; Part I of the Orpo government's report, a 20-year scenario process prepared jointly by all ministries and informed by 40 dialogues on Finland's future, was submitted on 18 September 2025.
The Prime Minister's Office coordinates an interministerial foresight working group that drafts a scenario report once per electoral term, and Parliament's Committee for the Future answers it, so foresight is a recurring duty of both branches rather than a project.
Preconditions
Cross-party agreement in Parliament that long-range questions deserve a standing committee
A Prime Minister's Office strategy department with a secretariat to run the interministerial process
A consensus political culture in which coalition changes do not discard the previous government's institutions
Where else it has been used: Several parliaments have set up committees for the future modelled on Finland's; the retelling usually keeps the committee and drops the government's matching duty to report, which is the half that makes the dialogue run.
Limits: Both numbers describe the process, not its effect: a 20-year horizon and 40 dialogues show the report was made, not that any decision changed because of it. The construct asks for existence, mandate and continuity, and the strongest evidence of continuity, one report every electoral term since 1993, is stated by the Prime Minister's Office as a practice; the source does not list each report, so the count of reports since 1993 is not given here. The figures are the government describing its own work. The parliament page states that the Committee for the Future is standing and was established in 1993, and it renders by script, so a reader without JavaScript sees an empty page although the text is in the delivered data. Finnish foresight is widely cited abroad, but praise is not evidence and is not used here.
๐ช๐ชEstoniasince 2016still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
Estonia's parliament set up a statutory Foresight Centre within the Chancellery of the Riigikogu under the Foresight Act of 2016. In 2025 the centre published four research-direction reports and 17 short reports, drawing on more than 30 researchers and experts.
The Riigikogu legislated a foresight centre inside its own chancellery and gave it a separate budget line and a duty to report to the Economic Affairs Committee every year. Its five-member council, from which MPs and ministers are barred, is appointed by the Economic Affairs Committee, a business organisation the committee names, the President, the university rectors and the Academy of Sciences (ยง 4(2)-(3)), which puts most of the council outside parliament.
Preconditions
A parliamentary committee willing to adopt the centre's yearly plan and defend its budget across governments
A pool of domestic researchers the centre can commission, since it buys most of its studies
An earlier foresight programme (the Development Fund) whose staff and practice could be moved rather than started from zero
Where else it has been used: Finland's Committee for the Future is the usual comparison. It is a standing committee of MPs, while Estonia's centre is a staffed analytical unit with an outside council. The Estonian form needs less political time but depends more on one budget line.
Limits: The two counts measure output, not influence. Nothing in the source shows that a scenario changed a budget, a law or a programme. The publisher is the Riigikogu Chancellery reporting on a unit it houses and services, so this is self-reporting with no external evaluation. The 34% spontaneous awareness figure in the same chapter comes from a Kantar Emor survey reported in the same chapter. Report counts are not comparable across countries or years: research directions vary in scope, and the 17 short reports run from agriculture competitiveness to private tutoring. The centre advises parliament, not the executive, so it says nothing about whether the government runs foresight inside ministries. It is small: in January 2025 the chair of the Economic Affairs Committee, Jaak Aab, said the committee would do its best to keep the centre's budget intact through spending cuts (Riigikogu press release, https://www.riigikogu.ee/pressiteated/majanduskomisjon-kinnitas-arenguseire-keskuse-2025-aasta-tegevuskava/), which shows continuity is not guaranteed. Continuity is real but rests on a redesign. The 2016 Act dissolved the Estonian Development Fund, which had housed the earlier foresight work, and the record does not show whether capacity was lost in that transfer. The Riigi Teataja page that carries the founding dates renders only with JavaScript.
Congress gave the Office of Technology Assessment, created under the Technology Assessment Act of 1972, the statutory function to provide early indications of the probable impacts of technology; it appropriated $21,970,000 for the office with a cap of 143 staff for fiscal year 1995, then appropriated $3,615,000 for fiscal year 1996 to carry out its orderly closure, with no more than 17 employees paid except for severance.
Congress built its own analytic office, governed by a bipartisan board of members, to give legislators early warning on technology choices, and later closed it through the appropriations bill rather than by repeal, cutting its funding by roughly five sixths in one year and capping staff for the wind-down.
Preconditions
A legislature with its own budget for in-house analytic agencies
Bipartisan support strong enough to protect a small agency through spending rounds, which failed here
A statutory mandate that survives defunding, so the function can be revived without new law
Where else it has been used: European parliaments built technology assessment offices on the model, including the German Bundestag's TAB, which cites the US office as its model; the US original closed while the copies continued.
Limits: Technology assessment is adjacent to strategic foresight, not the same thing: the office studied technologies on request from congressional committees rather than running whole-of-government scenarios. It is filed here because its statute, 2 U.S.C. 472(c), states an anticipatory function, to provide early indications of the probable beneficial and adverse impacts of the applications of technology (govinfo, US Code 2023 edition, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2023-title2/html/USCODE-2023-title2-chap15-sec472.htm). Both figures are appropriations, not spending or output: they show the money Congress gave, not what the office produced, and the 143 and 17 figures are statutory staff caps, not headcounts. The FY1995 figure comes from a different source, Public Law 103-283 in the Statutes at Large (108 Stat. 1423), inside a PDF on page 11 of the file (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-108/pdf/STATUTE-108-Pg1423.pdf). The authorising statute was not repealed and still appears in the US Code, so the office was ended by withdrawing funds rather than by abolishing its legal basis; it could be refunded without new legislation. The 1996 act also carried $2,500,000 of FY1995 funds forward to September 1996, so the FY1996 closure figure is not the whole of the wind-down money. Started is the year of the authorising Act, not the year the office first reported.
๐ต๐ฑPolandsince 1996dismantledbears on Government foresight capacity
Poland's Government Centre for Strategic Studies, attached to the Prime Minister, with tasks of strategic programming and forecasting of economic and social development set in article 14k of the Act of 8 August 1996 on the Council of Ministers, was liquidated as of 31 March 2006 by the Act of 17 February 2006, in the year its budget had been planned at PLN 10,016 thousand.
Parliament gave a strategic studies centre attached to the Prime Minister its own statutory tasks and budget part, then a new government folded it into the Prime Minister's Chancellery and a line ministry as part of an administrative savings programme.
Preconditions
A statute giving the unit its own budget part, which made it visible as a line to cut
A government programme of administrative consolidation that counted a separate agency as overhead
Receiving ministries willing to absorb the tasks, which let the unit be closed without a visible gap
Limits: The figure is planned spending in the government's draft 2006 budget, quoted in the bill's regulatory impact assessment, not an outturn, and the same assessment expected savings of about half of it. The bill proposed liquidation on 28 February 2006; the act as passed (Dz.U. 2006 nr 45 poz. 319, ISAP, https://isap.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/DocDetails.xsp?id=WDU20060450319, PDF) set 31 March 2006, and the claim uses the enacted date. The centre's statutory work was forecasting and long-term strategic programming, which sits closer to development planning than to scenario-based foresight. Its tasks did not vanish: the act moved impact assessment, foreign policy concepts and analyses ordered by the Prime Minister to the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, and the bill moved strategy and forecasting to the minister for regional development, so what ended is a dedicated unit with its own budget line, not every forward-looking task. Started is 1996, the year of the Act on the Council of Ministers whose article 14k held the centre's tasks; neither source gives the centre's founding date or first year of operation.
๐ฉ๐ชGermanysince 1990still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
Since 1990 the German Bundestag has kept an Office of Technology Assessment, run under contract by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, whose tasks include horizon scanning of scientific and technological trends at early stages; by 2026 it reported more than 200 projects and over 400 publications.
The Bundestag contracts a university technology assessment institute to run a dedicated office for parliament, steered by its research committee, which picks topics and approves reports before publication.
Preconditions
A national research institute with an established technology assessment group able to host the office
A standing committee willing to act as steering client across electoral terms
A contract model that lets parliament buy analytic capacity without creating a civil service unit
Where else it has been used: The office names the US Congress's OTA as its model; Germany kept the parliamentary office when the US closed its own in 1995, but placed it with a contractor rather than inside parliament.
Limits: Technology assessment is adjacent to strategic foresight: most TAB projects assess specific technologies on request from the Bundestag committee for research and technology assessment. It is filed here because the same page lists horizon scanning, the observation of trends in early stages of development, among its tasks and describes its aim as forward-looking analysis, and the site carries a separate foresight section. Both figures are cumulative lower bounds (more than 200, over 400) with no date stated, so asOf is the retrieval date. TAB reports on itself, and it is operated by a university research institute (ITAS at KIT) under a contract with the Bundestag rather than by parliamentary staff, so continuity depends on contract renewal. The counts show output, not influence on legislation, and they serve parliament, not the federal executive.
๐ฐ๐ทSouth Koreasince 2018still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
Korea's National Assembly enacted the National Assembly Future Institute Act on 12 December 2017 and opened the institute on 28 May 2018 with a statutory duty to predict and analyse changes in the future environment and derive mid to long term national development strategies; its English-language research report archive listed 203 reports in 2026.
The National Assembly legislated a futures research institute attached to the National Assembly and gave it a statutory mandate for long-range national strategy, so parliament holds its own foresight capacity independent of the government of the day.
Preconditions
Cross-party support for a statute rather than a Speaker's initiative that could lapse
A parliamentary research ecosystem (budget office, research service, library) to house it beside
A domestic research community the institute can recruit from
Limits: The institute reports on itself. The count is a running total shown on an archive board ("Total 203"), not a dated annual figure, so asOf is the retrieval date, and it covers the English-language listing only; the Korean site organises reports differently and may hold more. The newest report in the English listing is dated 30 December 2024, so the count shows nothing published in English since then. A report count measures output, not whether any law or budget changed. The institute serves the National Assembly, not the executive, so it says nothing about foresight inside ministries. The founding dates and the Article 1 purpose come from the institute's own History and Vision pages (https://nafi.re.kr/home/eng/contents.do?menuPos=10 and menuPos=11), not from the statute text itself.
๐จ๐ญSwitzerlandsince 2007still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
Switzerland's Federal Chancellery runs a long-term, continuous situation and environment analysis for the Federal Council that looks 10 to 15 years ahead; it produced Herausforderungen in 2007 with expertise from 30 federal offices, Perspektiven 2025 in 2011, Perspektiven 2030 in 2014, the Schweiz 2030 and Schweiz 2035 reports and the scenario report Perspektiven Schweiz 2040, which feed the Federal Council's legislature planning.
6 reports, reports in the chancellery situation and environment analysis series named on the page, 2026-10-02. 30 federal offices, federal offices whose expertise fed the 2007 report herausforderungen, 2007. Swiss Federal Chancellery, Lage- und Umfeldanalyse, retrieved 2026-10-02.
The move, and what it needed
The Federal Chancellery, as staff office of the Federal Council, pools experts from across the federal offices into a standing interdepartmental staff that writes a futures report timed to each legislature planning cycle.
Preconditions
A collegial executive whose four-year legislature planning gives the report a fixed customer and date
A neutral staff office above the departments that can convene them without belonging to one
Federal offices willing to lend analysts to a cross-cutting exercise
Limits: The report count is ours, made from the six titles the page names (Herausforderungen, Perspektiven 2025, Perspektiven 2030, Schweiz 2030, Schweiz 2035, Perspektiven Schweiz 2040). Both numbers describe the process, not its effect: six reports and 30 contributing offices show the analysis was made, not that a decision changed because of it. The Chancellery describes its own work and states that the reports serve as a basis for legislature planning; the source does not show how. The page gives publication years only up to 2014 and does not date Schweiz 2030, Schweiz 2035 or Perspektiven Schweiz 2040, so the series after 2014 is shown as existing, not as dated. Started is the year of the earliest report the page names, not the founding of the Perspektivstab, which the page does not date. The 30 offices figure belongs to the 2007 report only. The Chancellery is the Federal Council's staff office, so this is a staff function, not a minister's unit.
๐ซ๐ทFrancesince 2009still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
The Bureau of the French Senate created a foresight delegation in April 2009, succeeding the planning delegation set up by the 1982 planning reform law, with a mandate to study changes in society and the economy and to build scenarios; it has 36 senators appointed in proportion to the political groups and adopted reports in every year from 2010 to 2022 listed on its page.
A chamber's governing bureau turned an existing planning delegation into a standing foresight body of members with free choice of topics and a duty to write scenarios, which keeps it outside the legislative calendar.
Preconditions
An earlier planning delegation whose seat and staff could be repurposed
A chamber with longer terms and partial renewal, which suits long-horizon work
Freedom from bill work, which lets members choose topics without committee pressure
Where else it has been used: The page names Finland's and Lithuania's committees for the future as the only European parliamentary equivalents; the French version is a delegation of senators served by Senate staff rather than a research institute.
Limits: Membership measures size, not influence: 36 senators on a delegation say nothing about whether a report changed a law, and the delegation has no legislative power by design. It informs the Senate only; the National Assembly has no equivalent, as the page itself says, and the figure says nothing about foresight in the executive. The page's report list stops at 2022, although the delegation's main page shows a report dated June 2026, so the list is incomplete and no report count is given here. After the 2026 Senate renewal the main page states the delegations will be reconstituted, so the current membership is pending. It is filed against the foresight construct because its rules instruct it to draw up scenarios of change, which is foresight practice rather than technology assessment (France's technology assessment office, OPECST, is a separate body).
๐จ๐ฑChilesince 2012still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
Chile's Senate created the Commission on Future Challenges, Science, Technology and Innovation in April 2012, modelled on Finland's Committee for the Future, with the Academy of Sciences, National Prize winners and university rectors as permanent members; by July 2024 more than 700 scientists had worked in more than 20 of its expert tables.
A Senate committee co-opts the national science establishment as permanent members and runs expert tables that turn scientific frontiers into draft strategies and bills, giving parliament a standing futures agenda without a research staff of its own.
Preconditions
A science academy and university rectors willing to sit with legislators
A senator who chaired it for a decade, which gave it continuity
A public outreach event, Congreso Futuro, that keeps the agenda visible
Where else it has been used: It was modelled on Finland's Committee for the Future; Chile kept the committee and replaced the Finnish government's duty to report with expert tables drawn from academia.
Limits: Both figures are lower bounds (mรกs de) and sit inside a four-page PDF, on page 3. They count participation, not influence: the same note lists five bills in the commission's legislative work, four members' motions and one government bill, all still in their first or second constitutional stage in July 2024, including two to create a national strategic foresight agency (Boletรญn 16.061-07) and a new foresight institution (Boletรญn 16.441-19). That means Chile had a parliamentary foresight committee but, as of the note's date, no statutory executive foresight body, and this record does not claim one. The commission is a standing Senate committee; the note does not count its sessions or reports. The figures are compiled by the Congress library at a director's request and are not independently audited. The Senate's own committee page (https://www.senado.cl/actividad-legislativa/comisiones/941) still lists the commission in 2026.
๐จ๐ฆCanadasince 1996still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
Policy Horizons Canada, which describes itself as the Government of Canada's centre of excellence in foresight and reports through the Deputy Minister of Employment and Social Development Canada, published Disruptions on the Horizon 2024, which identified and assessed 35 possible disruptions using survey input from around 500 stakeholders, colleagues and foresight experts across the Government of Canada and beyond.
A small dedicated foresight unit inside the federal public service, governed by a deputy minister steering committee, runs recurring horizon scans and surveys hundreds of officials and outside experts to rate disruptions by likelihood, impact and timing, and trains and networks foresight practitioners across departments.
Preconditions
A permanent home and budget line inside the public service that survives changes of government
Senior sponsorship at deputy minister level so departments answer the survey and read the result
A network of departmental foresight practitioners to carry the work into policy files
Where else it has been used: Policy Horizons' published foresight training manual is listed as a toolkit by the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation; this was seen in search results only and not verified at source.
Limits: The unit is reporting on its own work, and the 500 is stated as 'around 500', an approximate count of survey inputs rather than a measure of whether any department used the scan; the report itself says its content does not necessarily represent the views of the Government of Canada. The description as centre of excellence is in the report's disclaimer; the reporting line through the Deputy Minister of Employment and Social Development Canada is stated on the unit's about page (https://horizons.service.canada.ca/en/about-us/index.shtml), not in the report. Both figures appear on the web version at the source URL and in the PDF edition (pages 5 and 7 of https://horizons.service.canada.ca/en/2024/disruptions/Disruptions_on_the_Horizon_2024_report.pdf). No published budget, staff count or uptake figure was found: Employment and Social Development Canada's 2024-25 Departmental Results Report does not mention the unit, so the record evidences a standing federal function producing a dated whole-of-government scan with a deputy minister steering committee named in its acknowledgements, not the influence of that scan on policy. Whether the Disruptions report is annual was not verified: no 2023 or 2025 edition was found at the corresponding addresses. Started is 1996, when secondary histories place the unit's predecessor, the Policy Research Secretariat, in the Privy Council Office, renamed Policy Research Initiative in 2000 and Policy Horizons Canada around 2011 to 2012; that lineage was not verified on an official page today and the foresight mandate as now worded dates from the later renaming. The unit sits inside a line department rather than at the centre of government, which limits its reach.
๐ธ๐ชSwedensince 2011delivered and closedbears on Government foresight capacity
The Swedish government appointed Framtidskommissionen, chaired by Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, in November 2011 to identify the societal challenges Sweden faces in the longer term, and by its final report in March 2013 it had held eight meetings, organised 40 open meetings, seminars and workshops, published twelve background reports and an anthology, and carried out four sub-inquiries.
The head of government chairs a time-limited commission of ministers, social partners and researchers that commissions background reports and runs public meetings across the country to name long-term challenges, then publishes one report and disbands.
Preconditions
A head of government willing to chair it personally
A secretariat inside the Government Offices for the life of the commission
A successor structure to carry the work on, which was missing here
Where else it has been used: The format recurred under the following government as Mission: The Future (2015 to 2016), which was also time-limited.
Limits: The commission reports on itself, and the figures count activities, not influence on policy; the foreword says identifying challenges, not proposing how to meet them, was its purpose. The figures are in a 316-page PDF, on PDF page 17 (printed page 14) and repeated on PDF page 310 (printed page 291), where the November 2011 appointment and the membership are also stated. It was a time-limited commission of ministers from one coalition and outside members, and it ended with the report: it evidences the existence and mandate of a centre-of-government foresight exercise and, for the construct's third element, its lack of continuity. The next government ran its own time-limited project, Mission: The Future, from February 2015 to April 2016, with a Minister for Strategic Development from 3 October 2014 to 25 May 2016 (government.se, https://www.government.se/government-of-sweden/prime-ministers-office/mission-the-future/, read in a browser because the site returns 403 to scripts), and Sweden's innovation agency Vinnova wrote in 2024 that in strategic institutionalisation of foresight for policy Sweden is 'a weak case' (Strategic Foresight for Innovation, PDF page 32). Status is concluded rather than dismantled because both vehicles were set up as time-limited and no source read today shows either was cut short.
๐ฒ๐ผMalawisince 2020still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
Malawi's National Planning Commission, which signed a UNDP initiation plan in November 2020 to create a foresight unit and horizon scanning capability, reported for 2022/23 that it produced a foresight modelling report with modelled scenarios for the Malawi 2063 vision, policy briefs on three of the vision's pillars with UNDP and the finance ministry, and foresight modelling training for planners from ministries and academia.
The statutory planning commission that owns the national long-term vision built a small foresight and modelling capability with UNDP support and used it to test the vision's targets against scenarios and to train planners in ministries.
Preconditions
A statutory planning commission with a mandate over a long-term vision
Donor funding and technical partners to seed the capability
Ministry planners and academics willing to adopt the methods
Where else it has been used: The commission organised a learning visit on foresight planning to South Africa in the same year, so the method was borrowed from a regional neighbour as well as from UNDP.
Limits: The commission reports on itself, in a PDF (section 3.3, printed pages 38 to 39, PDF page 42). The metric is a single report, and the text does not say how many policy briefs were written, only that they covered the urbanisation, industrialisation and agricultural productivity pillars, so the delivery figure is thin. The foresight work leans on UNDP: the unit was set up under a six-month UNDP initiation plan (NPC news item, 26 November 2020, https://npc.mw/2020/12/npc-undp-sign-agreement-to-initiate-implementation-of-foresight-project/) and the 2022/23 briefs were produced with UNDP, so the record cannot separate national capacity from donor support. The commission is primarily a development planning body that monitors the Malawi 2063 vision and its first ten-year implementation plan, which sits closer to planning than to open-ended scenario foresight; its modelled scenarios are tied to vision targets. No later annual report was read, so status rests on 2022/23, and the report gives no staff count or budget for the foresight function.
Cรดte d'Ivoire's Ministry of Planning and Development completed its fourth national prospective study, Cรดte d'Ivoire 2040, under the technical responsibility of the Bureau National de la Prospective et de la Veille Stratรฉgique, after earlier national studies in 1973 to 1974, 1983 to 1984 and 1993 to 1995, and built eighteen thematic and three global scenarios to the 2040 horizon.
The planning ministry keeps a standing foresight bureau with the rank of a directorate general that runs a national prospective study about once a decade, using an expert group drawn from universities and ministries and national and local commissions to debate the results.
Preconditions
A planning ministry with a mandate for long-term perspective, not only five-year plans
University and ministry staff available for a multi-year expert group
Political sponsors willing to adopt the study's vision, which the 2025 study lacked
Where else it has been used: National prospective studies of the same method ran in several West African states, including Mali, whose 1997 to 1999 Mali 2025 study its government evaluated at national prospective days in January 2014.
Limits: Both figures are in a 12-page PDF (page 5 for the four studies, page 6 for the scenarios); the date comes from the file name (final version, 13 March 2017), not from the document. The ministry reports on itself, and the figures count studies and scenarios, not influence: the same summary says the 2025 study did not lead to a plan and that the 1999, 2002 and 2010 to 2011 crises followed scenarios the government had not used. The four studies span four decades with a gap the summary attributes to structural adjustment, so continuity is episodic, and the bureau's own creation date is not given; started records the first national study. The ministry's own site (plan.gouv.ci/structure/5, read 2 October 2026) still lists the BNPVS among its attached directorates and keeps a prospective and strategic watch section, which supports the operating status, but no dated output after 2017 was read at an official source; a national prospective day in May 2024 and a sectoral foresight manual in September 2025 were seen only in press. The study claims a strategic watch mechanism was to follow; no figure for it was read.
๐ณ๐ดNorwaysince 1999still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
Norway's Board of Technology, an independent public advisory body created in 1999 on the Storting's initiative that also serves as secretariat for the Storting's technology group, delivered eight publications and held eleven meetings, four of them for the Storting's technology group, in 2025 on operating income of NOK 13.8 million.
The government appoints a 15-member council for four-year terms with a small independent secretariat that chooses its own projects, convenes expert groups and lay panels, and briefs the Storting through a cross-party technology group it services.
Preconditions
A parliament that wants an independent source of technology advice and a cross-party group to receive it
A stable budget line outside any single policy ministry
A council free to choose topics, set in its statutes
Where else it has been used: Denmark's equivalent body, also called Teknologiraadet, was defunded and abolished in 2012 (dnk-teknologiraadet); the Norwegian one survived on a similar design.
Limits: The board reports on itself to its parent ministry; the figures are in a 41-page PDF, publications and meetings on PDF page 5 and income on page 3. It is a technology assessment body more than a strategic foresight unit, though its 2025 work included a project on strategic foresight methods and an annual trend report for the Storting. Publication counts measure output, not influence on law or budgets. It is small: the secretariat had eight permanent staff in 2025. Its funding line moved in 2025 from the trade ministry's research council chapter to the research council's allocation letter from the education ministry, which the report describes as an administrative change; continuity since 1999 is stated on the board's own about page (https://teknologiradet.no/forsiden/om-oss/), not in an external evaluation.
๐ฉ๐ฐDenmarksince 1995dismantledbears on Government foresight capacity
Denmark's parliament abolished the statutory Board of Technology, set up by Act no. 375 of 14 June 1995 to assess technology and report to the Folketing, by Act no. 559 of 18 June 2012, after an all-party budget agreement of 15 November 2011 withdrew its annual grant, which had been DKK 10.5 million in 2011, to fund the research reserve.
A statute gave a self-governing board its own Finance Act grant and a duty to report to parliament each year; an all-party budget deal then reallocated that grant to research funding, and parliament repealed the act unanimously.
Preconditions
A separate, visible grant line that could be reallocated in one budget agreement
No parliamentary committee that owned the board and would defend it
A foundation route that let staff and methods continue privately, which removed resistance to closure
Where else it has been used: Poland's strategic studies centre (pol-rcss) was closed in 2006 by a similar budget-line logic; Norway's board of the same name (nor-teknologiradet) survived.
Limits: The figure was read in the bill's XML (https://www.retsinformation.dk/eli/ft/201112L00079/xml), because the eli page renders with JavaScript; the vote (104 for, none against) and the law number and date come from the Folketing's open data API (oda.ft.dk, case 9940). The board was a technology assessment body with participatory methods, which is adjacent to strategic foresight rather than the same thing. Its work did not stop: Aktstykke 65 of 20 March 2012 let it create a foundation, Fonden Teknologiraadet, which continues as a non-profit that sells projects, so what ended is the statutory public function and its guaranteed grant, not every activity. The bill puts the annual saving at about DKK 10 million and sets aside DKK 4.5 million for winding up in 2012. The 1995 act replaced an earlier Technology Board (Teknologinaevnet) under a 1989 consolidated law, so the public function predates the start year given.
๐ง๐ชBelgiumsince 1959still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
Belgium's Federal Planning Bureau, which produces the government's economic forecasts and long-term demographic, ageing, energy and transport outlooks, published 34 publications in 2025 and employed 91 full-time equivalents at the end of the year, down from 96 at the end of 2023, after it stopped replacing departing staff in 2024 to meet savings targets.
91 FTE, staff, full-time equivalents at 31 december, 2025-12-31. 96 FTE, staff, full-time equivalents at 31 december (earlier level, not shown to be a peak), 2023-12-31. Bureau federal du Plan, Rapport d'activite 2025, retrieved 2026-10-02.
The move, and what it needed
A statutory, de facto independent planning bureau receives mandates from government, parliament and social partners, and publishes forecasts and long-term outlooks that the federal budget and pension debates rely on; in a savings drive the government cut its grant and it stopped replacing leavers.
Preconditions
A statute that makes its forecasts the official basis for the budget
Social partners and parliament as co-principals, which protects independence
A core grant large enough to keep long-term modelling teams, which savings measures are now eroding
Limits: The bureau reports on itself; the 91 FTE (80 funded by the federal grant, 11 by contracts) and the hiring freeze are on PDF page 12, the 34 publications on page 19. The 96 FTE is from the 2023 activity report (https://www.plan.be/sites/default/files/documents/OTH_ACTIV_2023_FR.pdf) and the 2024 report gives 94 (https://www.plan.be/sites/default/files/documents/OTH_ACTIV_2024_FR.pdf). The record is filed as operating, not eroded: the fall is five FTE, about 5 percent, from a 2023 level that is not shown to be a peak (earlier reports were not found at the same address), and output held, with 37 publications in 2023, 45 in 2024 and 34 in 2025. The staff trend and the bureau's statement that it no longer replaces leavers to meet savings targets are a documented squeeze on capacity, and a later report showing a deeper loss would justify eroded. Most of the bureau's work is medium-term forecasting and policy costing, not scenario-based strategic foresight; its long-term population, ageing and sustainable development outlooks are the foresight part. The report says nearly 40 percent of staff will retire within ten years, which is a risk stated by the bureau, not a measured loss. The 1959 start is the Act of 23 December 1959 named on the bureau's legal basis page (https://www.plan.be/en/about-us/legal-basis).
๐ฌ๐ทGreecesince 2022still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
Greece's Special Secretariat of Foresight published its Megatrends 2040 report and seven megatrend notes in February and March 2022 and then six further foresight studies to September 2026, including Generative AI Greece 2030 (January 2024), The Future of Work and Skills in Greece (February 2025) and Mediterranean Foresight (September 2026).
A special secretariat at the centre of government runs foresight studies with universities and research centres, trains a network of public servants in foresight tools, and represents Greece in EU foresight networks.
Preconditions
A secretariat placed close to the head of government
Research partners to co-produce studies, since the unit is small
EU foresight networks that supply method and a reporting rhythm
Limits: Both counts are ours: the two studies list pages show no dates, so each item's date is the datePublished stamp in the metadata of its own page (for example Mediterranean Foresight, 29 September 2026; The Future of Work and Skills, 24 February 2025), and the site states no total. Of the six later items, several were made with partners (the National Centre for Social Research on internet use, the UNESCO Chair on Futures Research on innovation to 2035, and the High Level Advisory Committee on AI for the AI blueprint), so the Secretariat's own output is smaller; reposted EU Strategic Foresight Reports are excluded. Output fell from a launch burst in 2022 to one or two studies a year. The site's footer and its July 2026 press release now name the body the Special Secretariat of Long-term Planning, a renaming whose date and legal basis were not read; the 2022 start is the date of the first study, not the founding act, which was not read. A count of studies says nothing about use in policy.
๐ฑ๐นLithuaniasince 2022delivered and closedbears on Government foresight capacity
Lithuania's Government Strategic Analysis Center (STRATA) followed six thematic public discussions on the country's future in May and June 2022 with nine foresight studies on megatrends and scenarios by policy area, which fed the vision and strategic ambitions of the draft state progress strategy Lietuva 2050.
The government's strategic analysis centre ran public thematic discussions, commissioned studies that turned their megatrends into sector scenarios and SWOT analyses, and used them in workshops that drafted the long-term state strategy.
Preconditions
A government-owned analysis centre with a mandate in strategic planning
A strategy cycle that asks for a long-term vision
Experts and citizens willing to take part in discussions
Limits: The live site (https://strata.gov.lt/) returned 403 to scripts, so an archived copy was read. The counts are stated by the centre about its own work and measure output, not influence; the page does not date each study, and 2022 is the year of the discussions. The exercise was tied to one strategy, so it shows a foresight delivery and not, by itself, a standing foresight function; STRATA's wider role (research, impact assessment, training) continues but was not counted. Whether the final Lietuva 2050 strategy adopted the scenarios was not read.
๐ฒ๐ฆMoroccosince 2007still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
Morocco's Royal Institute for Strategic Studies, announced in the 2003 Throne Speech to strengthen the country's capacities for analysis, adaptation and anticipation and created by Dahir No 1-07-183 of 30 November 2007, published the twelfth edition of its strategic dashboard on Morocco's international positioning on 28 November 2024 and was still issuing general reports in 2025.
The head of state created by decree a strategic studies institute with a small project-based staff and associated researchers, which runs recurring monitoring products, national surveys and studies on questions he refers to it.
Preconditions
A head of state who commissions long-range studies directly
A decree giving the institute a standing mandate and a guidance committee appointed from the top
Associated academics to staff time-limited study projects
Limits: The institute reports on itself, and the figure is an edition number in the title of a listed report, not a count of output the institute publishes. The dashboard tracks Morocco's position in international indicators, which is strategic monitoring (veille) rather than scenario-based foresight, and the institute describes itself as a think tank, a watch function and a forum, working on questions referred by the King; the mandate and the Dahir are on the presentation page (https://www.ires.ma/fr/ires/presentation), where the 2003 Throne Speech that announced it names anticipation as its purpose. It sits outside the elected government, attached to the monarchy, so it is a centre-of-state body rather than a cabinet unit, and nothing read today shows its work entering a government decision. The page gives no budget, staff count or total of reports. Started is 2007, the year of the founding Dahir; the publication list begins in 2009.
๐ณ๐ฟNew Zealandsince 2020still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
New Zealand's Public Service Act 2020 required every departmental chief executive to publish a Long-term Insights Briefing on future trends, risks and opportunities at least once every three years, and nineteen were published in the first round, which concluded in mid-2023, four of them produced jointly by several agencies.
A public service statute obliges every department head to consult the public on a topic, write a briefing on medium and long-term trends with policy options, and table it at least once every three years, with the centre of government publishing guidance and reviewing the round.
Preconditions
A statutory stewardship duty in public service law
A centre-of-government policy team to issue guidance and review rounds
Departments with analysts able to do futures work alongside daily business
Limits: The live dpmc.govt.nz page returns 403 to scripts, so it was read from a Wayback Machine copy of 18 June 2026; the page is the coordinating department reporting on a duty it guides. It is a statutory duty spread across departments, not a single foresight unit with its own budget and staff, and the count measures briefings published, not their quality or influence: DPMC's own review of the first round assessed the process only and said so. Started is 2020, the year of the Act that created the duty; the page does not give the year the first briefings were published. The briefings are think pieces independent of ministers and are not government policy. Whether the second round has kept the same number of briefings is not stated on the page.