Push to Establish Federal Foresight Office in White House Accelerates

While you can’t quite go back to the future, with a little of planning and information, you may be able to better predict it.

And that could help the U.S. Government plan for a whole host of problems in this uncertain world.

That’s the message of a new nonprofit group called the Federal Foresight Advocacy Alliance (FFAA), which just released a report advocating for the federal government to create an Office of Strategic Foresight in the White House.

The goal: help the government stay ahead of the curve by centralizing all foresight efforts. Right now, many agencies do foresight on their own, but there is no centralized office.

Foresight is “Imperative”

In the report, the authors write that “Geopolitical uncertainties, demographic and technological shifts, extreme environmental events, access to critical resources, and rapidly shifting paradigms make the establishment of a U.S. Office of Strategic Foresight imperative for national resilience and strategic advantage.” 

They point to massive events that caught the government off guard such as the September 11 attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic, and the need to be better prepared.

In addition, the report notes that without a hub to coordinate such issues, the U.S is at a global competitive disadvantage, suffers from lack of foresight-informed strategy and decision making, and is reactive, not proactive.  

The group says there are a myriad of benefits to establishing a formal office:

·      Early identification of opportunities and threats.

·      Improved strategy and policy formation.

·      Enhanced adaptability and resilience in the face of uncertainty.

·      Facilitation of cross-disciplinary collaboration.

·      Cultivation of a long-term thinking culture.

·      Global competitiveness and innovation.

“I always felt like something was missing with the way I was asked to do strategy and the way the government prepared me to do strategy,” said FFAA co-chair Robin Champ to GovExec. “And it wasn’t until I did some digging around and I started studying the Coast Guard’s Project Evergreen and their scenario planning work that I realized that this is what’s missing, this deliberate look into the future and looking at alternative scenarios before we sit down and write a strategy is what was missing. 

The group pointed to successful applications of strategic foresight in other nations and allies, such as Canada, Finland, the European Union, and others.

Office Structure

The paper goes on to describe the structure of a potential office which would be led by a director and deputy director.

An executive order and/or legislative action would be needed to create the new office within the Executive Branch, preferably within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

It could potentially turn into a cabinet-level agency.

Meanwhile, groups such as the Federal Foresight Community of Interest (FFCOI) are providing additional forums for federal employees and others to gather and exchange ideas on the best ways to advance strategic foresight in the federal government.