Strategic Foresight & Planning Archive

Strategic Foresight & Planning is a newly established capacity at the European Space Agency

The decision to create it reflects ESA’s recognition of the need to be more proactive in anticipating and responding to an increasingly unpredictable and fast-changing global environment, shaped by rapid technological advancements, geopolitical shifts, and intensifying global competition. By establishing this capacity, ESA aims to strengthen its resilience and ensure it remains prepared for future challenges and opportunities. For doing so, the Strategic Foresight & Planning Office (SLE-SF) delivers:

I. Futures Intelligence: monitoring the global environment to identify changes and anticipate disruptions.

II. Institutional Foresight & Planning: supporting long-term strategy, anticipation and policy making.

III. Ad hoc projects: addressing cross-cutting trends or supporting specific programmes to develop and future proof strategies and programme proposals.

Benefits of Strategic Foresight and Planning for ESA

- Better anticipation and resilience: to identify and prepare sooner for new opportunities and challenges that could emerge in the future.

- Informing strategic decisions: to evaluate strategic choices by considering multiple future scenarios, assess various outcomes, and address these opportunities and challenges.

- Future-proofing: to stress-test existing or proposed strategies and programmes against a range of future scenarios.

- Fostering collaboration: to facilitate cross-directorate collaboration and alignment to focus resources on long-term capability development and investment to stay ahead of future challenges.

More info: futures@esa.int