Anticipatory Policy Innovation and Decision-Making

Governments facing converging challenges tend to default to reaction. A crisis appears, followed by a response, and the underlying pattern repeats. The problem lies less in the lack of intelligence than in the institutional arrangement itself. Most public administrations are built to process the present. Few are built to hold a picture of what is still approaching. Some ministries carry the long-term stakes of climate, technology, or demographic change, while operating on budget cycles and mandates measured in months. 

The distance between what officials are accountable for and what their institutions are structured to notice keeps widening.

The common assumption is that governments simply lack the tools for foresight. But that assumption does not hold. Anticipatory governance already exists, though tested by specific ministries, in specific countries, often without much visibility beyond their own borders. Singapore’s futures units, Finland’s foresight practice, Estonia’s digital governance experiments and comparable efforts in Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea and the United Kingdom all demonstrate working models.

The gap lies in recognition, comparison and the confidence to carry these models home. Foresight practices that work in one ministry rarely travel to another, because no shared architecture exists for passing them on.

This programme, co-hosted by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Demos Helsinki, is built to close that gap.

Anticipatory Policy Innovation and Decision-Making Programme

The programme, organised in over four online modules, spread across 16, 18, 23 and 25 November, brings foresight practitioners from mature and emerging systems into direct exchange with participants, moving from how anticipatory systems are designed through to how anticipation gets built into an organisation’s daily practice.

What you will gain

• The capability to drive anticipatory decision-making inside their own organisation
• Practice co-creating foresight methods and anticipatory planning processes
• A working approach to institutionalising experimentation, rather than treating foresight as a one-off exercise
• Case studies to draw on when the argument for anticipation meets institutional resistance
• Direct exchange with practitioners from mature and emerging foresight systems
• Membership in a working community of officials carrying the same institutional weight

Who it is for

• Policymakers, government innovators and civil servants with a genuine stake in anticipatory governance
• Officials already building foresight capacity, and those only beginning to ask the right questions
• Individuals or teams; both are welcome to register
• No prior foresight expertise required, though a basic grounding helps

Overview of the programme structure (see brochure)

Module 1 (16 November): How the Foresight System Is Designed
• Anticipatory governance
• Approaches to anticipatory systems

Module 2 (18 November): How Foresight Integrates with the Policy Process
• Foresight in strategic planning and public finance
• Case study: anticipatory decision-making through futures dialogues, panels and red teams
• Foresight and experimentation

Module 3 (23 November): Interesting Trends in Foresight
• Expanding anticipatory capabilities
• Sector-specific case studies

Module 4 (25 November): From Inspiration to Action
• Implementing and institutionalising anticipation
• Workshop: building experiments for participants’ own organisations

Dates and fees

• Dates: 16, 18, 23 and 25 November 2026 (Mondays and Wednesdays)
• Time: 3pm-7pm, Singapore Time
• Application deadline: 31 October 2026
• Early bird fee: S$1,400 plus 9% GST, until 31 August 2026
• Standard fee: S$1,750 plus 9% GST
• Fee includes all learning support materials

Faculty

• Cheryl Chung, Executive Education Senior Fellow, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy
• Mikael Sokero, Team Lead, Demos Helsinki

Sign up here

If you have any questions, please contact Mikael Sokero: mikael.sokero@demoshelsinki.fi.