General Presentation
Creation
Futuribles began life in 1960 at the instigation of Bertrand de Jouvenel and with funding from the Ford Foundation. It was, initially, an ‘international committee’ comprising a dozen intellectuals from various different countries and disciplines (including political sciences, economics, sociology, science and technology). The aim of these intellectuals — from the USA, France, UK, Japan, India and other countries — was to remedy the lack of rigorous thinking about the future, both within and outside government.
Describing the state of play at that point, Bertrand de Jouvenel wrote as follows at the time of Futuribles’s foundation: Read Bertrand de Jouvenel’s text (in French).
‘A “forecasting forum” is needed… in which “advanced” opinions will be produced about what may occur and what can be done. And, since the passage of time brings new situations and the germ of new developments, it is clear that that “forum” should be in continuous operation: the point is not to form a definitive view of the future, but to discuss it continuously. The forecasting forum must be set up as a genuine institution, in which a very wide range of experts will contribute specialist forecasts that will be amalgamated into more general forecasts.’
Bertrand de Jouvenel, 1960 (subsequently reprinted in L’Art de la conjecture, Monaco: Éditions du Rocher, 1964, p. 345).
The French word prévision (forecasting) was used at the time by Bertrand de Jouvenel in a sense close to the current term prospective (foresight).
Since then, Futuribles has pursued these objectives with styles of work that have varied depending on the context and needs of the moment. We present the chronology here in brief outline.
1960-1970’s
Between 1960 and 1965, the ‘Futuribles International Committee’ published some fifty foresight essays, which appeared at the time in the Bulletins of the Société d’études et de documentation économiques, industrielles et sociales (SEDEIS). It also organized major international conferences—at Geneva, Paris, New Haven (Connecticut) and elsewhere.
In 1967, the Association Internationale Futuribles was created. This was a non-profit body, initially under the chairmanship of Bertrand de Jouvenel and, shortly thereafter, of Pierre Massé, a former French Planning Commissioner. The association enjoyed substantial state funding at the time and brought together most of the centres engaged in foresight work, foremost among them the Centre d’études prospectives, initially created by Gaston Berger (it quickly merged with the Association internationale Futuribles), the Collège des techniques avancées, the above-mentioned SEDEIS (then publisher of the journal Analyse & Prévision [Analysis and Forecasting]) and, later, Revue 2000, the journal published by the French state organization for regional development, DATAR.
At this point the Futuribles International Association performed two main functions: it managed an important archive of future-oriented documentation and studies, and it functioned as an international centre to bring together those intellectuals and decision-makers with an interest in the long-term future. The Association organized an international conference in Paris in 1973 that saw the creation of the World Futures Studies Federation.
With subsidies drying up, however, the association ran into significant financial difficulties, forcing it drastically to restructure its activities. Hugues de Jouvenel, the son of Bertrand, was elected Chief Executive Officer in 1973 to carry out an overhaul. Without fundamentally changing its objectives, he ensured generally that the association was able to enjoy increased independence from the public authorities and, in particular, he introduced foresight study exercises funded by formal agreements or contracts.
In 1974, Hugues de Jouvenel created Futuribles to replace two defunct journals — Analyse & prévision, formerly published by the SEDEIS, and Prospectives, which had taken over from the journal Prospective, initially founded by Gaston Berger.
Read Corinne Roëls’ article on the birth of Futuribles journal (in French)
1980-1990’s
The 1980s saw significant development of the Association’s activities: the creation of a database of foresight centres and a bibliographical database, the organization of several European foresight conferences (particularly in association with the European Commission), the production of a great many contractual foresight studies and the founding in 1987 of a publishing company, SARL Futuribles, which took over the publishing of Futuribles journal.
Futuribles today
Since then, Futuribles has greatly developed its strategic monitoring and foresight activities on behalf of its members (companies, public services, local and regional authorities etc.); its training activities in foresight concepts and methods; its engineering and advice activities for applied foresight exercises within both local/regional authorities and other organizations; and its publishing activities in both print and digital media.
Futuribles remains faithful to its history and continues to draw on its intellectual and methodological heritage. Its activities are enhanced by an openness to other (design-based, imaginative) approaches to the future that also place greater emphasis on the involvement of active agents in building the future.