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Looking back at an exciting 2008, and forward to a new year full of interesting challenges
Highlights in the past year were the successful closing of our 2025 Fields for Food or Fuel project (www.giract.com*) and the start of an ambitious new Foresight (UK Government) project, looking at long-term developments in Land Use. Also our lead facilitation of the Annual Meeting of the Global Futures Forum in Vancouver, spring 2008, was a considerable success.
We are now looking forward to a string of new assignments. Dexia Bank has commissioned a new, customised learning game for their specialist advisory staff, which we will co-develop with our design partners at pars pro toto. We continue to work with the Global Futures Forum and the Global Energy and Environmental Security Ecosystem on issues of international security. The King Baudouin Foundation has invited us to collaborate on a project that aims at identifying short to medium term systemic friction points in the Belgian mental health(care) landscape. We are also developing two new initiatives in the area of collaborative innovation and sense-making.
We are sensing that decision-makers are getting more interested in a systemic approach to dealing with messy issues. That is perhaps not surprising, given that the limitations of old recipes become quickly obvious in the turbulent regime we are now witnessing. The interest is heartening (and long overdue) but we should take care not to reduce the systemic to an empty formula. There are no corners to cut when it comes to dealing with structural problems. We look forward to working with our clients and partners in the coming year to co-design systemic interventions that will help us deal with the fundamental challenges of our time.
Foresight Mental Capital and Wellbeing launch and article in Nature
October 2008 – The Foresight project on Mental Capital and Wellbeing project
was officially launched on 22nd October 2008. shiftN worked with the project’s team of scientific experts to create a set of system models that map the factors that contribute to our learning and wellbeing across the lifecourse. shiftN also developed a set of future scenarios that help us to imagine how metal capital and wellbeing may evolve in the coming decades.
Many of the systems diagrams and the scenarios can be found in the final Project report. The final report and additional reports are available from the Project Outputs page.
A summary of the project has also been published in Nature, along with shiftN’s lifecourse map:
The mental wealth of nations, Nature 455, 1057-1060 (23 October 2008)
Obesity Systems Map draws crowds at visualcomplexity.com
October 2008 – shiftN's interactive Obesity Systems Map is now featured on visualcomplexity.com, a web resource featuring cutting edge examples of the visualisation of complex networks. Since it has been posted early October the map has been downloaded more than 10.000 times. The visual model is a good example of the sophisticated visualisation capabilities that shiftN brings to bear in illuminating complex strategic issues.
Foresight Obesity Project shortlisted for civil service award
September 2008 - Foresight's Tackling Obesities: Future Choices project team are one of three teams to be short listed for a civil service award in the science and technology category. The award recognises best practice in the innovative use of science and technology as part of the policymaking or business planning process. shiftN was part of the project team as responsible for the systems mapping work package in this project.
Foresight Land Use Futures
September 2008 - shiftN has been awarded a contract in the framework of the new Land Use Futures project led by the Foresight Directorate of UK Government.
The project will explore how land use in the UK could change over the next 50 years. This includes examining society's future needs and values toward land use in order to identify where the greatest pressures on land could be. shiftN has been asked to contribute to a systems analysis of the ìland use systemî as a conceptual foundation for a set of future scenarios. We will also contribute to developing a diagnostic tool, based on the systems analysis and the scenarios, to identify short-to-medium term policy priorities.
As in all Foresight projects, we will have the opportunity to rely on a large body of solid, very up-to-date scientific evidence. The project will run well into 2009 and final deliverable is scheduled for January 2010.
Link: Foresight Project on Land Use Futures
Philippe Vandenbroeck invited to become member of the Board at The Hub Brussels
August 2008 - The Hub is a fascinating experiment in creating opportunity spaces for social innovators. In just a few years the original concept has branched from its initial London base to more than 10 urban locations worldwide. And this is only the beginning. Social entrepreneurs can rely on the Hub for an inspirational, physical place to conduct their business, but also for access to networks and support in management and financing. Philippe has been invited to become a member of the Board at the newly established Hub Brussels in order to help guide the fledgling organisation to a bright and dynamic future in the capital of Europe.
The Hub
The Hub Brussels
Wikipedia: Social Entrepreneurship
Tällberg Forum 2008
June 2008 - shiftN’s Philippe Vandenbroeck has been invited to the 2008 Tällberg New Leaders Program and the Tällberg Forum. Guided by the question "How on earth can we live together? In search of the common sense" the Tällberg Forum will gather thinkers and leaders from seventy nations for four days (June 26-29) of conversations and workshops related to the opportunities and challenges of global interdependence. Participants are invited to provide diversity of men and women, of old and young, and a true mix of nationalities from all continents: Politicians, global corporate leaders, thought leaders, artists, clerics, civic leaders and NGO leaders. At the Forum, Philippe will co-moderate a three-day “design workshop” on biofuels. The New Leaders Program precedes the Forum and invites a small and mixed group of young participants to explore and reflect on the new leadership required to weather the transformational phase at our doorstep.
Umicore Way Game nominated for Umicore Innovation Award
June 2008 - The Umicore Way Game, co-developed by shiftN and pars pro toto, was nominated as one of the three candidates for the 2008 Umicore Innovation Award.
The Award recognises outstanding achievements that bring tangible value to the company by a clearly innovative approach. The Umicore Way Game was developed to help employees worldwide internalise the company’s code of conduct and sustainability and human rights policies. Since its introduction earlier this year, the Game has been enthusiastically embraced by all levels of the organisation (including its executive management team). Winner of the 2008 Innovation Award was a financial innovation that results in a significant benefit for the company.
Additional grant from UN foundation for ‘2025 Fields for Food or Fuel?’
May 2008 – 2025 Fields for Food or Fuel? is a collaborative scenario project on the future biofuels regime, jointly organised by shiftN and Giract (www.giract.com). The project is an effort to better understand supply-demand dynamics in global biomass markets. Key sponsors include the UN Foundation and three agrifood companies: Jungbunzlauer, Nutreco and Cosun. Participating experts Participants include representatives from sponsor organisations, from NGOs (WWF, International Institute for Sustainable Development, Ethical Sugar), the European Commission DG Environment, transnational institutions (UNCTAD, FAO, IFAP) and academic experts.
The scenario development process has been brought to a close and the final report is in preparation. The UN Foundation has provided an additional grant to design and publish a summary brochure with the project’s key insights. This brochure will be available for wide distribution from mid-summer onwards.
New Global Futures Forum Publications
May 2008 - Recently the Global Futures Forum has published two documents to which shiftN has decisively contributed. “Radical Worlds of 2020 – Imagining the Futures of Radicalisation” emerged from a scenario project that has been designed and facilitated by shiftN. Another study “The Illicit Trafficking Concept Map – Targeting the Global Criminal Infrastructure” summarises the results of a shiftN-led systemic analysis of global organised crime and trafficking.
Strategy Seminars for Avicenna
May 2008 - shiftN has been invited to teach a series of strategy seminars in open and in-company programs of the Avicenna Academy for Leadership. Avicenna is a renowned Dutch institute for executive management training. It offers a range of innovative programs for senior leaders, avoiding the standardised formats prevalent in executive training.
“Anticipating threats in a connected world”
April 2008 - The Global Futures Forum convened its 2008 General Meeting in the beautiful city of Vancouver. For four days, from 13 to 16 April, three hundred intelligence, national security, law enforcement and non-governmental experts engaged in strategic (unclassified) conversations on transnational threats in a connected world. The overall facilitation of this successful event was in the hands of shiftN.February 2008 – shiftN has started to work with the Dutch telecom operator KPN. In collaboration with Prof. H.A. Akkermans from Tilburg University – a supply chain dynamics expert - systems modelling and mapping tools are used to diagnose one of its key divisions’ business processes.
A futures seminar for Foresight, UK Govt.
April 2008 - shiftN has been invited to develop a seminar on futures methodologies for the newly established Land Use project team at Foresight. The seminar discussed a wide range of futures and systems techniques as a basis for designing strategic interventions to deal with future uncertainties.
Foresight’s mandate is to support UK policy makers with science-based assessments of cross-departmental, future challenges and opportunities. The unit is based within the Government Office for Science, which is part of the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills.
The Land Use project will study how land is likely to be valued as a resource in the future and how competing pressures on land in the UK will affect the economy, environment and society.
Systems modelling at KPN
February 2008 – shiftN has started to work with the Dutch telecom operator KPN. In collaboration with Prof. H.A. Akkermans from Tilburg University – a supply chain dynamics expert - systems modelling and mapping tools are used to diagnose one of its key divisions’ business processes.
New King Baudouin Foundation report: “From Patient to Policy Partner”
February 2008 - The King Baudouin Foundation just published a new report - “From patient to policy partner: opportunities and obstacles”. This is the result of an extensive mapping process conducted by shiftN to examine the possibilities of improving patient participation in health-care policy. shiftN conducted one-to-one and group interviews with a diverse group of stakeholders leading to a rich and nuanced understanding of the purpose, logic and contribution of patient participation. An approach based on the soft systems methodology (SSM, developed by Peter Checkland) has been used to structure the interview database.
These insights formed the basis for interaction with the wider stakeholder community in a series of multi-stakeholder dialogues. This part of the process culminated in the stakeholder day on 12 October 2007, which generated a raft of practical proposals for improving patient participation in health-care policy.
The stakeholders expressed an emphatic desire to continue the conversation. This report therefore marks an important but temporary consolidation stage in an expanding multi-stakeholder dynamic. The Foundation will use the results of the project as the basis for further initiatives to improve patient participation.
Full report (in Flemish or French) can be downloaded from here.
An English summary is available from here.
Organisation and strategy at the Flemish Patient Platform
February 2008 – Following up on its involvement in the “Patient to Policy Partner” project of the King Baudouin Foundation, shiftN has been invited by the Flemish Patient Platform (Vlaams Patiënten Platform, VPP) to help prepare the organisation for future challenges. shiftN has designed an interactive strategy process – involving the Board, the organisation’s executive management, the member organisations and experts. The intervention blends a soft systems approach with Stafford Beer’s Viable Systems Model. The project is designed to run from February to June 2008.
Mapping out a long-term agricultural research agenda
December 2007 - Rural economies are being reshaped by established and emerging trends such as increasingly global competition and knowledge intensity, changing consumer preferences, increasing concerns regarding energy security and growing pressures from environmental degradation and climate change.
The Flemish Platform for Agricultural Research - co-ordinated by the Agriculture and Fisheries Administration - has been given the task to map out the long-term research needs (up to 2020) to deal with these challenges. shiftN has been asked to support the Platform in this endeavour. We will provide a systemic analysis of future challenges and issues that may affect the viability of rural economies in this part of the world. In addition, a process will be designed to engage the wider stakeholder field in assessing these issues and defining an appropriate long-term research agenda. In this project, shiftN is partnering with Geneva-based Giract, a research and consultancy organisation with significant experience in global agri-food sectors.
The project is scheduled to start mid-March 2008 and will be concluded early in 2009.
“2025 fields for food or fuel?” Drawing to a close.
February 2008 – The 2025 Foods for Food or Fuel? project was launched on October 1st with a first workshop in Divonne-les-Bains near Geneva.
The series of three workshops was concluded in February 2008.
Richard Perkins, from WWF UK expressed the participants’ enthusiasm, saying he found it “a fascinating meeting” and “one of the best facilitated processes I have been involved in recent years”.
With this initiative, shiftN and Giract brought together representatives from different stakeholder groups to collaboratively develop and explore future scenarios on the emergent, global bio-energy regime. The project is an effort to understand the future dynamics of global supply and demand of “renewable organic material”. This issue is particularly acute given the emerging competition between different end-uses for biomass - food, animal feed and energy – with severe disruptions of agrifood markets as a possible consequence.
The project has been conceived and developed by shiftN and Giract. Prof. André Faaij from Utrecht University’s Copernicus Institute acts as the project’s Scientific Advisor.
Key sponsors of the initiative are the UN Foundation and three agrifood companies: Jungbunzlauer, Nutreco and Cosun.
Participants include representatives from sponsor organisations, from NGOs (WWF, International Institute for Sustainable Development, Ethical Sugar), the European Commission DG Environment, transnational institutions (UNCTAD, FAO, IFAP) and academic experts.
More information can be found on www.fields-for-food-or-fuel.net
A Mental Capital and Wellbeing Project for Foresight UK
January 2008 - shiftN has been heavily involved in one of Foresight UK’s key projects: the Mental Capital and Wellbeing project. The UK Government's Foresight programme, alongside the Horizon Scanning Centre, uses science-based methods to provide visions of the future to enable policymakers to develop strategies to manage our future better. (The Foresight Programme and Horizon Scanning Centre are based in the Government Office for Science based within the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.)
The aim of this project is to produce a challenging and long-term vision for maximising Mental Capital and Wellbeing in the UK in the twenty-first century - both for the benefit of society, and for the individual. It surveys a particularly wide range of issues, ranging from mental health to learning difficulties, learning through life and mental wellbeing at work.
shiftN is responsible for two work packages in this project. First we work very closely with a wide range of top-level scientific experts to build cross-disciplinary visual models. The purpose of these models is to visualise systemic interdependencies across a wide range of issues surrounding mental capital and to make this complexity accessible to decision-makers and wider audiences. A second work package focuses on the development of a set of future scenarios to help assess the robustness of potential policy interventions in this area.
In a second phase, which has just started, we work closely with scientific experts who are engaging with their peers and stakeholders in thinking through the implications of the insights gathered in an initial phase of the project.
The projects’ second phase has just started and is scheduled to run from February 2008 to May 2008.
New UK government strategy on obesity launched
January 2008 - A new cross government strategy to tackle obesity "Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives" was launched by the Health Secretary, Alan Johnson and the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls building on Foresight's most recent published project. This strategy is the first stage of the Government's response to the Foresight report "Tackling Obesities: Future Choices", published in October 2007.
shiftN has been deeply involved in the work leading up to this groundbreaking report. Working with top scientists across the UK, shiftN has built a comprehensive system map that provides the most systemic view to date on the many interdependences between biological, social, cultural, psychological and economic factors associated with obesity. More information on the project and the full report can be downloaded from here.
One of the elements in the UK Government’s strategy is the establishment of a National Obesity Observatory. This will use the systems map as the backbone of their research and monitoring functions.
More information on the “Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives” strategy can be found here.
Radicalisation Futures 2020
December 2007 – shiftN continued to work on Radicalisation futures with an expert group from the Global Futures Forum, a multinational, multidisciplinary intelligence community embracing intelligence, national security, and nongovernmental experts. The aim is to better understand drivers behind radicalisation processes in societies and to anticipate how they might evolve. The recent workshop offered an engaging mix of expert contributions, field testimonials and interactive scenario building work. In addition to the radicalisation-focused community, shiftN supports other topic-focused communities of interest in the GFF.
