Publications
Futurewatch summarises information coming out of the scanning network in various ways:
- The "Panoptic" summarises scanning observations from the past year. The panoptic notes trends and developments not only in science and technology but also in the realm of economics, social and the natural & physical world that will influence, or be influenced by science & technology.
- Trend summaries – short reports noting recent developments and signalling potential implications for New Zealand.
- More detailed reports on particular topics – such as biotechnologies, stem cell research, and sustainability.
Some of the presentations we have made on Futurewatch can be viewed on the Presentations page.
The Futurewatch Panoptic
The Panoptic is the framework that we are using to summarise trends and observations coming from our scanning. Observations are divided into four categories – science & technology; economic; social, and environment (ie the natural and physical world). This is a simplification, due to space constraints, of the traditional PESTLE (political, environmental, social, technological, legal & economic) framework used for many futures analyses.
Observations are derived from a variety of sources – published papers, blogs, government or other reports, conferences, or the scanners own thoughts. Most of the observations are based on developments occurring outside of New Zealand. The Panoptic is intended to stimulate policy makers and others to think about the implications for the trends and developments in their area of interest. As such it doesn’t identify what may happen or when, but we are using it to encourage others to think about how different factors (technological, economic, social etc) may interact with each other, and the implications.
The Panoptic also does not provide a comprehensive overview of what is going on across the whole science and technology sector – it reflects what our limited range of scanners is submitting. The Futurewatch links page provides other sources of information on trends and futures-related work in other organisations that may also be of interest to you.
The Panoptic poster is A2 in size, although you can print it onto A3 paper. If you would like hard copies of the poster please contact us.
Trend Summaries
We are summarising some of the observations and trends from our scanning in short Trend Summary reports. These are intended primarily for other government agencies and package a range of related scanning observations together and indicate how they may be relevant to different areas of interest (such as health, or agriculture).
The summaries come out on an irregular basis. Currently available Trend Summaries are: