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SHAPING OUR ENVIRONMENTAL FUTURE: FORESIGHT IN THE OFFICE OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Impact/Purpose:
An enhanced institutional capacity to identify emerging issues would provide Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decision makers with additional tools and information they need to establish strategic priorities and enhance long-term planning.
Description:
Futures analysis is a structured process that uses a variety of analytical tools to help organizations to better understand, anticipate, and influence the potential events and conditions of tomorrow. In its 2001 Strategic Plan, EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) affirms that it “will evaluate opportunities for and, as appropriate, will conduct research to anticipate and assess future environmental stressors – whether human health or ecological – before their effects adversely impact people or the environment.” To this end, ORD committed to: (1) developing an organizational capacity for environmental foresight, (2) stimulating dialogue both inside and outside EPA on future environmental developments and their significance, and (3) performing a pilot futures analysis for a few key environmental issues. This handbook has been written to help advance these foresight objectives, as well as to build on ORD’s recent progress in both high-tech and low-tech research areas, including Sustainability, Regional Vulnerability Assessments, ecosystem Alternative Futures, Genomics, and Nanotechnology. This document is a basic guide to the tools and approaches commonly found in the futures literature and represents the standard practices used in the public and private sectors. Most importantly, it highlights the benefits that will accrue to EPA, and to the public, as a result of ORD’s consistent and continuous dedication to foresight.