Research is a key ingredient in the Secondary Futures conversation.
Research Process
We use research in two ways:
Input
We research extensively what is happening in New Zealand and the rest of the world in futures and education thinking. This is a continuous process. It has helped us create a structure and framework for our conversations through our three key questions - and led to the ongoing development of a set of tools to help stimulate people's thinking.
Output
We analyse feedback from our workshops to identify points of agreement
and difference in peoples' views about the future, which we capture as themes.
Then we link all the information we are gathering together - the themes
that are emerging from our conversations, the key questions we are
asking, stories we have collected about innovation and best practice
inour education system - with what we know of the world context.
We package all this information up in a virtual filing cabinet we call "the matrix".
The matrix is an interactive tool you can use to explore
the key questions, themes and stories that are
emerging from our conversations so far.
Society:
How much will the Internet rule our lives? What will our houses look like? Will teenagers disappear? TIME explores some of these questions — and the possible answers — with its Visions of the 21st Century website.
Time.com Visions of the 21st Century
www.time.com/time/reports/v21/
This Statistics New Zealand website provides projections for the New Zealand population out to 2051. Results can be given for the total New Zealand population, local and regional populations, various ethnic population groups, families and households, and the labour force.
www.stats.govt.nz/datasets/population/ population-projections.htm
Statistics New Zealand Schools Corner:
www.stats.govt.nz/schools-corner/
Economy:
The Department of Labour's Future of Work programme examines future trends in work and their implications for the workplace, the workforce, and employment opportunities in New Zealand. On its website you can find research and information from the Future of Work programme, and updates on its activities.
www.dol.govt.nz/futureofwork/
Environment:
NIWA Climate Change Scenarios
www.niwa.cri.nz/ncc/clivar/scenarios
Futures Projects/Orgs:
Here you can download material published by the NZ Futures Trust, an independent non-profit organisation which aims to identify changes affecting the lives and aspirations of New Zealanders, and to promote debate about possible futures. Material includes the quarterly journal 'Future Times', and 'Our Country: Our Choices': the provocative views of eleven New Zealanders, and their vision of New Zealand's future in 2020.
www.futurestrust.org.nz/
The World Future Society is an association of people interested in how social and technological developments are shaping the future. This website provides links to recent news releases, web forums and futures publications.
www.wfs.org
Global Foresight Network is a network of researchers, thinkers, consultants and alliances. It focuses on the issue of "Strategic Foresight", which is based on the principle of planning from the future back to present.
http://www.globalforesight.net
Plausible Futures
www.plausiblefutures.com
BBC World Service Trust - 2015: Where will we be?
www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/trust/2015/