Surprise is the new normal. But how to cope with surprises, how to develop management policies when wild cards spoil all attempts to prediction? – These is the main topic of a new paper of Karlheinz that appeared in a publication of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency PBL. The paper is organized around three main propositions.

1. The VUCA (for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) world in which we now live makes it imperative to focus much more on (irregular) wild cards than on (regular) trends.
2. Although it is important to include wild cards in scenario studies, it is even more important to do independent wild card explorations.
3. Policymakers will only use wild cards in serious ways when they are given the opportunity to familiarize with wild cards by “playing” with the irregular future. The Dutch language publication „Strategisch onderzoek in het veranderende speelveld van wetenschap, beleid en samenleving. Essaybundel“ is available here.