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The Centre for Strategic Futures in Singapore

This case looks at The Centre for Strategic Futures of Singapore (CSF), and how the centre supports the government of Singapore. CSF is provides anticipatory capabilities and insights that help shape policies that take the future into account.

Today, the centre is part of the Prime Minister’s office. As such, this case provides a clear example of how governments may embed anticipation at its core and work continuously with foresight across all of government.

Description

Singapore has a long history of using strategic foresight in various parts of government dating back to the late 80’s. The Centre for Strategic Futures was established in 2009 but has since 2015 been a part of the Prime Minister’s office.

Centre for Strategic Futures is by no means the only foresight unit in the Singapore government: Several agencies have been setting up their own foresight teams. CSF, however, is central helping them build up the capacity.

Design

The mission of the Centre for Strategic Futures is “to position the Singapore government to navigate emerging strategic challenges and harness potential opportunities”. CSF does this in multiple ways:

  1. By building capacity and providing strategic foresight- and risk management training to public servants.
  2. By doing strategic foresight work (e.g. gathering insights on emerging trends and identifying signals of change).
  3. By communicating and disseminating insights to decision- and policy makers across all of government.

CSF’s impact is in no small part due to it being embedded so centrally in government. The central placement provides both access to the highest level of government and legitimacy when the centre interacts with other parts of government.

One way the CSF helps build anticipatory capacity in other parts of government is by having officials join the unit for some time before being placed elsewhere in government. This not only provides first hand experience but also creates valuable ambassadors.

The Centre for Strategic Futures use their own set of tools named SP+ (Scenario Planning Plus). SP+ is based on scenario planning, but draws on other approaches such as complexity theory.

The SP+ has 6 key phase-like purposes that define the approach of the Centre for Strategic Foresight:

  1. Defining focus: Establishing and understanding the intricate nature of a problem.
  2. Enviromental scanning: Scanning the environment for weak signals and identifying emerging issues around the problem.
  3. Sense making: Analysing raw information and piecing it together to mak sense of the problem.
  4. Developing possible futures: Exploring what alternative futures might look like, identifying desirable futures, and ‘backcasting’ to find out how to get there.
  5. Designing strategies: Identifying the right path forward (e.g. through simulations).
  6. Montering: Looking out for early indications of anticipated futures.

Like many other similar frameworks SP+ is meant as an iterative process where you move through the phases repeatedly, making sure you’re always on top of what the future might bring.

Impacts

Centre for Strategic Foresight’s futures work informs- and plays a key role in overall strategy across the whole of Singapore Government, from the Prime Minister’s Office to more specialised ministries.

Further information

For more information visit the Centre for Strategic Futures.