News Foresight
New Papers
- Steinmüller, Karlheinz: „Virtuelle Geschichte und Zukunftsszenarien. Zum Gedankenexperiment in Zukunftsforschung und Geschichtswissenschaft“, in: Reinhold Popp / Elmar Schüll (eds.): Zukunftsforschung und Zukunftsgestaltung. Beiträge aus Wissenschaft und Praxis, Springer Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, p. 145 – 159 (a paper on the parallels between futurological scenarios and counterfactual history)
- Steinmüller, Karlheinz: „Evolutionäre Perspektiven des Menschen“, in: swissfuture, the Journal of the Schweizerischen Vereinigung für Zukunftsforschung, no. 2/09, p. 4-9 (on the long-term evolution of homo sapiens)
Since 2003, Robert Gaßner of the IZT and K. Steinmüller wrote 12 scenarios about useful applications of high tech. Finally, they have been published as a Report of the IZT - with an appendix about the applied methodology:
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Gaßner, Robert / Steinmüller, Karlheinz: Welche Zukunft wollen wir haben? Visionen, wie Forschung und Technik unser Leben verändern sollen. Zwölf Szenarios und ein Methodenexkurs, IZT-WerkstattBericht 104, Berlin (
Download from the IZT homepage)
During 2008 Karlheinz Steinmüller published several papers to different foresight issues. Three of them, written with German and international colleagues, appeared in a book of the European Foresight Monitoring Network (see www.efmn.info):
- “Emergent S + T Priorities in the Triadic Regions”, EFMN Foresight Brief No. 042
- “Linz 21”, EFMN Foresight Brief No. 085
- "Luxembourg’s Innovation and S&T Policy at a Turning Point“, EFMN Foresight Brief No. 099
A fresh look at wild cards provides a paper written for the Singapore "Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning" Program:
- “Wild Cards – Preparing for the Unpredictable”, in: Edna Tan Hong Ngoh and Hoo Tiang Boon (Eds.): Thinking about the Future. Strategic Anticipation and RAHS, Singapore 2008
Signs of the Future
Futurologists are regularily looking for sings of the future: trends, weak signals and others. But there is still no comprehensive theory of how these signs are identified, how they are interpreted, and how they are used. One step foreward is a special issue of the Journal of Semiotics (Zeitschrift für Semiotik - sorry, only in German language) on "future signs". The issue contains papers by K. Steinmueller (the editor), Rolf Kreibich and other specialists in the field. Abstracts are available at the publisher's site.
Other papers by Steinmueller which appeared recently:
- "Thinking out of the Box. Weak Singals and Wild Cards for European Regions" in the Finish journal Futura no. 2/2007
- "Wilde Zukuenfte" (Wild Futures) in SwissFuture no. 2/2007
Technologies for the Future
In March 2006 the Steinmueller book on future technologies has appeared. Originally the Steinmuellers wanted to give it the title "Plus Ultra." - Plus Ultra, the motto of the Spanish royal dynasty stands for the ambition to always go one step further into the unknown (or - for the Spaniards - to sail on). The age of big discoveries is not over, and the 21st century has a lot of surprising scientific and technological breakthroughs in its sleeves. Nano - bio - info - cogno... Will the human being itself be transformed by technology? What are the prospects, what are the big challenges, what ethical issues and what public controvercies are to be expected?
The book aims at taking stock of progress so far and at assessing what can be expected. "Plus Ultra", alas, did not really work as a title. In German ears it is associated with ads about sanitary towels.