Funding to project on Anticipatory Governance

Mikkel Flyverbom, facilitator at the Internet Business and Society PPP cluster, has together with his research group received funding for a project on Anticipatory Governance. The group have applied for money from Svenska Riksbankens Jubilæumsfond ( (The Swedish Foundation for Humanities and the Social Sciences), and the grant recently came through, funding the researchers with almost 15 million Swedish kroner. The project is led by Christina Garsten, and will allow Mikkel to focus attention on questions related to big data and governance for the next five years, hence extending the PP Platform’s work with the theme and activities linked to the theme of big data.

The project team include:

Christina Garsten (project leader)
Jenny Andersson
Mikkel Flyverbom
Mark Maguire
Anette Nyqvist
Adrienne Sörbom

Project abstract

This project investigates how global foresight organizations attempt to anticipate the future, how scenario models are
produced, and what they tell us about proposed solutions for tackling urgent global challenges. The project aims to
investigate the practices of future foresight in five selected organizations to advance knowledge on the underlying cultural assumptions and forms of knowledge that make up the basis for scenarios for anticipatory governance.
Key questions are: What types of foresight and scenario models are created in organizations geared to proposing models for anticipatory governance? Who are the professionals generating, legitimating and disseminating these models and what cultural rationalities and epistemic assumptions shape their professional practices? What are the social practices involved in creating, shaping, and diffusing the scenario models? What role does the organizational context play in the production and distribution of scenario models? What forms of knowledge are produced in models for global foresight?

By way of ethnographic comparative analysis the project aims to contribute to mapping out a new field of research at the
intersection of theories of globalization processes, epistemic communities of foresight, and theories of governance – the
study of anticipatory governance. The project also seeks to respond to questions about the role of theories of social science and humanities in the making of global foresight models.

Please do not hesitate to contact Mikkel for more information about the project.