Global Foresight: Preparing for Future Trends

Overview

Geopolitical volatility, rapid technological adoption, and intensifying strategic competition are forcing today’s decisionmakers to operate in conditions where the pace, scale, and interconnectedness of change consistently outpace traditional planning cycles. To build long-term advantage, organizations need structured, forward-looking approaches to anticipate geopolitical risk, surface opportunity, and develop leaders equipped for an uncertain future.

Global Foresight combines geopolitical insight with applied foresight and scenario planning to help leaders translate long-term thinking into better day-to-day decisions. Drawing on CSIS’s world-class research, participants engage with leading experts and experienced practitioners to assess the impact of global macro trends on the future operating environment, identify critical uncertainties, build plausible future scenarios that inform strategic planning. 

Curriculum

Through a combination of topical seminars, strategic foresight workshops, and a scenario building practicum, participants will:

• Map Global Megatrends: Discover the ways structural megatrends like global demographics, water security, and energy demand are transforming workforces, consumer markets, supply chains, and geopolitical competition.
• Create Scenarios: Learn to build robust future-fit scenarios that model complexity, deliver impact, and stress-test current long-term strategies.
• Build Organizational Capacity: Review case studies and share lessons learned with peers and faculty about successfully integrating foresight frameworks into enterprise risk management, strategic planning, and day-to-day business operations.
• Embrace Anticipatory Leadership: Transition from reactive crisis management to proactive strategy building by learning to spot critical uncertainties and surface hidden opportunities.

Seminars

• New Frontiers: Five Megatrends That Will Define Our Future
• Shifting Demographics in Global Populations
• The Art and Science of Foresight
• Africa’s Future
• Future Food
• Critical Minerals and National, Economic, and Energy Security
• Technology, AI, and Strategic Competition
• Emerging Biotechnologies
• Remapping the Global Economy
• The Global Rise of Populism

Interactive Exercises

• Identifying Critical Uncertainties: Work with peers to challenge hard wired assumptions, identify weak signals of change, and develop a common language for describing the future.
• Scenario Design: Use the inductive method to create robust futures that effectively employ story, system, and other scenario-planning best practices.
• Applying Foresight: Effectively present scenarios to senior leadership and review strategies for building foresight capacity within your organization.

Additional Activities

• Networking Reception with Alumni and Senior Policy Experts: Private reception with a diverse cohort of alumni and senior policy experts to build your network.

Eligibility

CSIS is seeking a diverse cohort of mid- to senior-level professionals from across the government, private sector, nonprofit, military, and academic communities who are interested in developing structured approaches to address future uncertainties through analysis and strategy development.

How to Register

The online application includes a short entry form, statement of interest, brief bio, and resume. Entries will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Please note that spaces are limited and the course may fill before the deadline. Incomplete applications will not be considered.

Alumni

Previous and current participants include representatives from:

AirBnb, American Airlines, Australian Embassy, Bank of America, Boeing, Cargill, Chevron, Cisco, ExxonMobil, GlaxoSmithKline, KLM, Lockheed Martin, Los Alamos National Laboratory, TSMC, UK Ministry of Defence, National Geographic, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Walmart, World Bank