Leiden Learning & Innovation Centre
Futures Thinking
The methodology helping us to prepare for and shape preferred futures.
Futures Thinking is a strategic and imaginative approach to exploring possible, probable, and preferable futures. Rather than predicting what will happen, it helps us envision what could happen—and what we want to make happen. Through scenario building, signal scanning, and imaginative exercises, we stretch our thinking beyond the present and prepare for long-term change. Although the future is full of uncertainties, Futures Thinking increases resilience towards future changes.
Futures Thinking equips students, educators, researchers, and leaders with tools to anticipate emerging challenges, design innovative solutions, and critically reflect on the long-term impact of changes in their disciplines.
What can Futures Thinking do for you?
University staff
Futures Thinking offers university staff a structured framework to explore innovation, emerging technologies, and societal shifts. It empowers you to critically reflect on how these developments might shape your discipline and to actively steer it toward a preferred and purposeful future.
Managers & Executive Board members
The Futures Thinking methodology can help guide organisational strategy, anticipate systemic shifts, and foster innovation across departments. Make informed, future-ready decisions by integrating foresight into institutional planning, policy development, and mission alignment.
Teachers
LLInC supports educators to integrate Futures Thinking activities and approaches into their courses, thereby empowering students to think critically, creatively, and proactively about the future.
Futures Thinking Workshops
We offer a range of Futures Thinking workshops designed for both individuals and teams. Why join?
- Unlock creative thinking and innovation
- Strengthen your team’s strategic futures thinking skills
- Discover fresh perspectives on complex challenges
- Learn methods you can apply in everyday decision-making
Which workshops are on offer?
Futures Sparks (1-2 hour)
Looking for a quick and engaging introduction?
Our short workshops are a great way to get started with the basics of Futures Thinking.
In just one to two hours, you’ll:
- Discover the core principles of Futures Thinking
- Experience a hands-on exercise using one of our creative methods
Discover the value of futures thinking for you organisation
These sessions are fast-paced and energising which are perfect as a team activity or a first taste of Futures Thinking work.
(Note: short sessions are introductory and don’t go in-depth.)
Extended Workshops (2–4 hours)
Ready to dive deeper?
Our extended workshops offer a more immersive experience, allowing participants to focus on one possible future through different scenarios based on the four archetypes: Growth, Discipline, Transformation, and Collapse.
We use the time to delve deeper into this future through playful and thought-provoking methods, exploring the possible consequences and solutions which arise to think beyond conventional boundaries.
Through guided exercises, you’ll:
- Build and explore a future based upon a scenario
- Identify opportunities, challenges, and implications
- Collaborate creatively to shape desirable futures
Tailor-made Trajectory
If you're looking for a customised workshop or longer trajectory which fits your own ideas and organisation, then this option may be the solution. Together we...
- Build a workflow/trajectory tailored to your needs and wishes
- Offer advice on your goals, how to engage your audience and embed the results into your organisation.
As an extra, we offer you an after-action report, that gives you valuable insights in the results and outcomes.
Our methods
A selection of the creative methods we use in our workshops includes:
- 100 Ways: generate a wide range of ideas around a specific theme or challenge.
- Signals of change: identify weak signals and early indicators of emerging trends.
- Futures wheels: map out the ripple effects of a specific change or innovation to understand its broader impact.
- Artifacts from the future: create tangible objects or mock-ups from a possible future to make abstract ideas more concrete and relatable.
- Scenario building: constructing and exploring multiple future scenarios to understand different pathways and their implications.
- Lego: spark creativity and enthusiasm, literally building your own future. Visualise and share (abstract) ideas in a tangible, collaborative way.
- Backcasting: start from a preferred future and work backwards, identifying the steps needed to get there.
Contact us!
For a glimpse of what the future might look like for your education, strategy, or area of interest, get in touch with us by email at: futures@llinc.leidenuniv.nl.