A FUTURES INNOVATION REPORTThe Promise of Future Design
Using intergenerational role play and negotiation
to improve planning and decision-making ? andbecome better ancestors

Suzette Brooks Masters and Karthick Ramakrishnan

Suzet te Brooks Masters is US Adviser at t he School of Internat ional Fut ures (SOIF) and leadst he Bet ter Fut ures Project at Democracy Funders Net work, seeking to apply foresight andimaginat ion to reinvigorat ing American democracy.
Kart hick Ramakrishnan is St rategy Lead for t he Americas at t he School of Internat ional Fut ures
(SOIF), professor of public policy at t he Universit y of California and former director of t he
California 100 Init iat ive.

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Execut ive Sum m ary
Even as we contend with pessimism about the state of national politics and the need totackle complex long term problems across the globe, there are emerging innovations ingovernance and long-term problem-solving that merit our attention ? and thoughtful
adoption.
One new yet relatively unheralded innovation is Future Design, which is gaining traction in
many places across Japan and is being considered in other parts of the world. Variously
described as a methodology, a practice, and a movement, Future Design uses role play and?imaginary future generations?to help groups improve their capacity for empathy andcreative problem solving, and to better account for the needs of both current and future
generations. The School of International Futures (SOIF) is proud to share future-oriented
governance insights and practices like Future Design in order to usher in more equitable, justand sustainable futures for all.
This brief shines a light on this emergent interdisciplinary futures practice, with a view
towards increasing awareness and adoption in the United States and beyond in a variety ofsettings. Applications range from local planning and budgeting decisions to bigger policy
and governance questions at the state, federal and even international levels. By learning
more about this simple yet effective role play method, and by adapting it to serve the needsof communities across the United States and in other countries, we can improve our ability tomake decisions that are anticipatory 1 and increase our capacity for creativity, collective
imagination, and collective action.
Future Design has proven effective at driving intergenerational dialogue. To build on theseaccomplishments, it will be important to establish governance and decision making
mechanisms that maintain the focus on intergenerational impacts, and to translate intention
to action through changes in policy and practice. Thus, Future Design offers the opportunity
to learn from and adapt the proven insights on deliberation and planning in Japan to drive a
broader transformation from intergenerational conflict towards intergenerational dialogue,
intergenerational understanding and, ultimately, intergenerational commitments.

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Future Design offers the opportunity to drive a broadertransformation from intergenerational conflict towards
intergenerational dialogue, intergenerational understanding
and ultimately intergenerational commitments.

1. W hy f ocus on Fut ure Desig n?
There is a number of reasons why we? as organization leaders and as everyday people? careabout the long-term effects of our decisions as well as our failures to act or engage. We havea personal stake in the well-being of future generations of our family members andneighbors. We may also want to ensure institutional longevity and long-term prosperity for
those in our community, country and also perhaps the planet. Yet, a notable body ofresearch shows that we are ill-equipped to make good on those desires and to engage inlong-term thinking and decision making that can credibly incorporate the needs of future
generations.
This must change as we and our societies face a number of vexing and complex challenges
that will affect us and risk saddling future generations with even bigger problems. We have awell-documented tendency to discount the future, valuing it less than the present. This
leaves market-based and political systems unable to adequately care for and value thefuture without a way to counter that bias in our thinking and decision making.2 As the realityof those long-term challenges becomes clearer and the consequences of failing to solve
them loom over future generations, attention is rightly turning to ways of incentivizing
decision makers ? from individual voters to groups of citizens to planning councils andelected leaders in the executive and legislative branches ? to think about the impact of thedecisions they make today on people who will live in the future and to make better decisions
based on those considerations.
Future Design draws on insights from psychology, behavioral economics, and foresight, andbuilds on existing practices in planning and design, to help people become more adept atmaking decisions that serve the needs of current and future generations alike.

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The crux of Future Design is the use of imaginary fut ure persons to serve as proxies formembers of future generations. These are people ordinarily unable to express their ways ofthinking and problem solving and their preferences for decisions in the present that can havesignificant implications for outcomes affecting future generations.3 Use of temporal role playand simulated negotiations with future generations can influence decision making so that it
considers future impacts.
Given how easy it is to overlook the young and those who will come after us, embodying
these ?invisible?or barely visible future people through role play is especially powerful.
Future Design makes the future ?more real?by having people embody the role of future
generations, usually through the use of ceremonial attire or other markers to physicallymanifest a temporal shift in perspective. This embodiment of the future through role play
enables people in the present to wrestle with what kind of legacy we want to leave future
generations. Future Design thus can improve policy making and decision making by making
more explicit the choices, tradeoffs, and constraints that apply across generations. And it canpave the way for normalizing the use of intergenerational fairness criteria to create livableand sustainable futures? for our children, our children?s children, and other future
generations that we care about.4
Our hope is that by improving awareness of Future Design?s potential to improve
intergenerational empathy and fairness, we can promote increased experimentation withthese techniques in the United States and elsewhere. Increased experimentation andadaptation can, in turn, help provoke a necessary shift in mindsets, priorities, and policies
that enable decision makers to better anticipate and serve the long-term needs of theircommunities.

Future Design is an emerging body of scholarship andexperimental behavioral practice exploring the use ofintergenerational role play and simulations to change
attitudes and behavior towards future generations.

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2. W hat is Fut ure Desig n?
Future Design is an emerging body of scholarship and experimental behavioral practice
exploring the use of intergenerational role play and simulations to change attitudes andbehavior towards future generations. Future Design was first developed in Japan, notably by
Tatsuyoshi Saijo, a Japanese economist initially at Kochi University of Technology andpresent founder of the Future Design Research Center at Kyoto University of Advanced
Science.5 Other Japanese universities now have academic centers that engage in Future
Design and conduct real world experiments, including work by Keishiro Hara and colleagues
at the Future Design Lab at Osaka University,6 Yoshinori Nakagawa at Sophia University andthe Research Institute for Humanity and Nature,7 and the Future Design Research Project at
Shinshu University.8
Put in the simplest terms, Future Design is a process that gives embodiment to (and thus,?makes more real?) a particular community or organization?s future residents or stakeholders.
It achieves this by combining role play of imaginary future generations (often through the useof ceremonial attire or other markers to indicate time change) with exercises that include
design thinking, deliberation, negotiation, and other forms of group decision making.

Glossary of Term s Relat ed t o Fut ure Desig n
Fut ure Design is described as a movement 10 and a praxis11 that studies and informs thedesign of social systems "that would ensure sustainable environments and societies for
future generations."12
Imaginary Fut ure Generat ions are individuals tasked through role play to represent
members of future generations. This role play mechanism "allows members of the current
generation to virtually communicate and negotiate with members of future generations" andindividuals from the present generation who are playing future generation roles to "[interact
and negotiate] with others as if he/ she were doing so in behalf of a future generation."13
Fut urabilit y refers to the tendency of persons to experience "an increase in happiness as aresult of deciding and acting to forego current benefits as long as it enriches future
generations."14 As Tatsuyoshi Saijo further explains, "It is fundamentally a question of whether
the willingness of a parent to eat less to give more to their children can extend to a future
generation which is not related by blood."15

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These behavioral interventions are designed to improve decision making by correcting
problems that occur at both the individual level (such as our limited ability to envision andengage with our own futures and the futures of our communities) and at the institutional
level (as our systems of governance have short-term evaluation and accountability cycles
that can lead to harmful decisions in the long-term).
Future Design exercises usually include a few essential elements that draw on insights andpractices from planning, design thinking, social psychology, and behavioral economics:-

Perspective taking: Assignment to a future generational cohort that leads to explicit
consideration of long-term futures on a specific topic or issue;-

Role play: Real people play the role of members of different generations, including
imaginary future generations, typically differentiated through the use of distinctive
attire or markers; and-Direct engagement across generational perspectives: Deliberation and negotiation 9
among participants who have been assigned one or more generational roles.

The primary field-tested benefits of Future Design include increasing the ability ofparticipants to make intergenerationally fair decisions and engage in creative problem
solving, and expanding their capacity for intergenerational empathy, also known as
futurability.
Future Design draws on popularized strands of indigenous w isdom , especially the Seventh
Generation Principle, an ancient Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) philosophy that considers those
who are not yet born but who will inherit the world up to seven generations into the future.16
The Iroquois leaders put this philosophy into practice by imagining seven generations into

The primary field-tested benefits of Future Design include
increasing the ability of participants to makeintergenerationally fair decisions and creative problem
solving, and expanding their capacity for intergenerational
empathy, or futurability.

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the future when making important decisions.17 Broadly speaking, the Seventh Generation
Principle guides the governance approaches of many indigenous communities, as well as
advocacy efforts to shift towards sustainable development practices that are oriented
towards stewardship and regeneration.18
It builds on behavioral economics and psychology research 19 that explores why people
often have difficulty making decisions that maximize well-being over time and examines theimpact of imagining future selves and future others on individual preferences. That literatureshows that humans tend to discount the future and that confronting their future selves or
future others can change their calculus in the present, enabling them to be more patient andthus make better decisions for the longer run.
The more people are able to connect with their imagined future selves or future others, themore likely they are able to feel empathy towards them. W ith greater empathy towards
future selves or future others, people are more willing to take action for the benefit of future
generations, even if that results in some personal sacrifice in the present.20 This raises
interesting questions about ways to make imagined future people ? selves or others ? moreembodied to enable the formation of stronger emotional bonds. Future Design does this byhaving real people play the role of imaginary future generations in a tangible manner.
Future Design also builds on design t hinking and st rategic planning. In the Netherlands, twopractitioners, Igor Verettas and Rick Koster, have led Future Design processes21 with a wide
range of civil society actors and private organizations to stimulate creativity, extend time
horizons, and explicitly take into account future societal impact.
Their projects have included two primary school systems in Alkmaar, the Association of
Universities of Applied Sciences, and social entrepreneurs at the Nudge Global Impact
Challenge. The facilitators used creativity exercises and role play to enable participants toinhabit the future. To date, nearly 400 people in the Netherlands have participated in thesesessions. Many report being personally affected by the experience, wanting to live differently
now to enable better futures.
As Future Design interventions are tested, refined and adapted, they hold the potential to
improve current decisions in a range of settings: from local community decisions on housingdevelopment, transportation planning, and other infrastructure projects; to various local,
state and national decisions on policies ranging from education, health, environment, andpublic budgeting that affect the livelihoods and living conditions of future generations.
Perhaps even more fundamentally, Future Design can ?correct the governance system of

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democracy through the creation of an imaginary future generation that is to beaccountable as a new constituent.?22 By recasting our mindsets of our future
descendants as stakeholders and constituents, Future Design can help societies
improve their abilities to consider the future generational impacts of current decisions
as well as our failures to act.

Future Design makes the future 'more real' by having people
embody the role of future generations... This embodimentenables people in the present to wrestle with what kind of
legacy we want to leave future generations.

3. Dem onst rat ed b enef it s of Fut ure Desig n
The first field experiment (i.e., one conducted outside of a classroom setting) took place in2015, in Yahaba, a town of 28,000 people, in northeastern Japan.23 At a town hall meeting todiscuss policies that would affect the future of their hometown, half the participants wereinvited to consider the future of their town in 2060 from their present context. The other half
were instructed to put on special ceremonial robes and play the part of people from 2060.
They were asked to consider the present from the future vantage point in order to inform
town planning. Both groups were then asked to deliberate, in essence to negotiate, overpolicy priorities and choices. These discussions physically embodied generational trade-offs? like whether to invest in infrastructure or child care, renewable energy or industrial farming.
A different practice was used in Yahaba in 2017 to allow all participants to consider the policy
from the perspective of both the current generation and the imaginary future generation.
The method enabled the shift in perspective to occur within all individuals and activate their
futurability. This mechanism is now widely used.24

0 8 | Fut ure Desig nPart icip ant s in a f ut ure d esig n w orkshop t o creat e a
Co m p rehensive Fut ure Plan in Yahab a, Jap an

Credit: Tatsuyoshi Saijo and Yahaba City Office

Although Future Design started in small cities in Japan, it has now expanded to larger cities
and to settings that include national government agencies. It has led to the creation of a
Study Group on Future Design Policies in Japan?s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry,the creation of a Future Strategy Division25 in Yahaba applying Future Design to theformulation of the town?s comprehensive development plan, and the use of the technique inseveral other municipalities in Japan, such as Uji City, Matsumoto City, Suita City, Saijo City,and Kyoto.26 Importantly, a variety of researchers have taken to adapting Future Design to
new settings, including work by Keishiro Hara and colleagues involving city government
officials in Kyoto, and work in corporate settings such as research and development
decisions in a water engineering company.27
These future design experiments yield three main benefits:-

greater consideration of long-term impacts of current decisions,-

greater creativity in problem solving, and-greater empathy across generations

The first benefit is that the negotiation process between current generations and those whoplay the role of future generations enables communit ies to more st rongly consider
long-term fut ure impact s of decisions alongside short-term ones. Participants from the9 | Fut ure Desig npresent tend to favor policies that maximize short term benefits, while imaginary future
participants tend to advocate for policies that would be better for their communities in thelong term. Negotiations between the two groups give more explicit voice and consideration
to the likely concerns of future generations, and thereby produce decisions that are morebalanced between short-term and long-term impacts than traditional collective decisions. It
is precisely this type of negotiation and consensus building across current and imaginary
future generations28 that can lead to the development of equitable cross-generational
policies that take a longer term view and are driven by aspirational visions of the future.
In addition to helping produce better decision outcomes, Future Design also helps expand
t he abilit y of part icipant s to engage in creat ive problem solving, which prior research has
shown to be essential for innovation, entrepreneurship, and organizational transformation.29
In the case of community decision making, the Future Design experiments from Japan haveshown that participants who take on the role of imaginary future generations are better able

Fut ure Desig n w orkshop in Card if f, W ales

Researchers Ichihara and Ishii at RIHN trialed Future Design in Cardiff, Wales, demonstrating its
potential to advance intergenerational fairness.
Credit: Masako Ichihara

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to think creatively under conditions of complexity and uncertainty. As Saijo notes from one
particular study: "The current generation saw the future as an extension of the present time,
constructed visions that resolved current problems and issues, and produced ideas rooted
within current conditions and restrictions. Meanwhile, the imaginary future generation was
creative, giving the highest priority to the resolution of problems that were the mostcomplicated and time-consuming and depicting the future freely, regardless of current
circumstances.?30
Finally, Future Design helps part icipant s develop greater empat hy. It does so by
encouraging perspective taking and the changing of values and preferences, rather thanrelying on economic incentives, punitive measures or enforcement of social norms.31 W hen
present-day individuals experience happiness by giving up some current benefits to enrichfuture generations, that is what Saijo calls futurability, or intergenerational empathy. In one
experiment, Future Design exercises increased empathy towards one?s neighbors even in thepresent.32 To further reduce intergenerational conflict, Saijo and his colleagues are now
developing a Future Design methodology which has three steps that all the participants
undergo: thinking about the past from the present, the future from the present, and thepresent from the future.33 This has the benefit of having all participants enjoy thetransformational impact of the practices on their mindset.34

The imaginary future generation was creative, giving thehighest priority to the resolution of the problems that weremost complicated and time-consuming and depicting thefuture freely, regardless of current circumstances.

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4 . Prom ising areas f or ap p ly ing
Fut ure Desig n
Future Design is one of many approaches that help decision makers think about the future ina structured way under conditions of high uncertainty and complexity to make better
decisions that take into account intergenerational impacts.
As with other foresight and futuring tools, Future Design can be deployed in various settings,
from corporate board rooms to civil society organizations, planning agencies, legislative
caucuses, and citizen assemblies. As the transformative foresight triangle from School ofInternational Futures (or SOIF triangle) indicates, tools such as Future Design can be mosteffective when they engage at three different levels? leaders, organizations, andconstituents.35 Indeed, as some of the more advanced applications from Japan have shown,
Future Design has progressed from shifting mindsets and problem-solving capabilities
among citizens, to enabling leaders and staff in public agencies and businesses to translate
ideas into action.

SOIF t ransf orm at ive f oresig ht t riang le

The transformative foresight triangle reflects SOIF's theory of change. It has emerged from our research andpractice in multiple sectors across more than 50 countries. Effective transformation sticks only if interventions
involve citizens, organizations and leaders working together. Citizens, especially next generation voices, needto have the power to shape their desired futures by participating in decision-making. Leaders need to beenabled to take the interests of future generations into account in their decisions. Organizations, social
movements and sectors need to be able to navigate uncertain futures.
Credit: School of International Futures

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There are several promising ways in which Future Design can improve the quality ofdeliberation and decision making in communities across the United States and elsewhere.
The most obvious applications are in the areas of communit y planning and infrast ruct ure
design, where the long-term consequences of decisions are already apparent and where
decision makers and stakeholders alike are accustomed to working in highly participatory
settings such as design charrettes. We also see the opportunity to take Future Design into
broader contexts of decision making, including serving as an important upgrade to existing
efforts in part icipatory democracy, such as citizen assemblies, town hall and public
meetings, and participatory budgeting, and in more t radit ional decision making by
bureaucracies and legislat ures.

A p p licat ion t o p lanning and d esig n
One of the most immediate applications for Future Design in the United States is in thecontext of local planning, for two reasons. First, the practice has been developed and field
tested in dozens of examples pertaining to local planning in Japan, providing an easy path toadopt and adapt these methods to planning decisions in the United States and elsewhere,
on issues ranging from transportation and housing, to the development of parks and otherpublic spaces. Planning processes already involve extensive use of design exercises andsimplified versions of futures thinking through charrettes, which are intensive multi-day
events that engage municipal officials, developers, residents and other stakeholders in aprocess to drive a consensus strategy among parties with diverse or even divergent interestsand preferences.
Charrettes typically involve three phases: a brainstorming or ideation phase that includes the
production of design renderings of what has been discussed; a presentation and review
phase where participants provide feedback on the initial renderings and makerecommendations on necessary changes; and a third phase where the public provides aconfirmation of the final design or additional recommendations for revision.36 In order fordesign charrettes to be helpful, they also often involve an extensive period of research into
the local context and preparation of key design elements for a multi-day engagement
process.

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The introduction of imaginary future generations at key moments in a charrette could
expand the capacity of residents and stakeholders to think more creatively and longer termas they brainstorm and make decisions. Future Design is most likely to be useful in local
planning decisions when it is incorporated as early as possible into the charrette process(preparation and brainstorming phase) rather than waiting for the final stages (review andconfirmation phases) of a design process. This is because Future Design exercises are, by
their nature, generative exercises that are intended to expand the imagination and creative
capacity of participants. Participants who are introduced to the idea of role playing andtaking on the perspective of imaginary future generations will also be more likely to entertain
the perspective of future generations when it comes to the review and confirmation phasesof final plans and designs.37

A p p licat ion t o p art icip at ory d em ocracy
A number of participatory democratic practices (sometimes also known as deliberative
democracy or co-governance)38 are gaining ground in the United States and elsewhere. They
seek to give greater voice and agency to members of the public in expressing their policy
preferences and tackling tough issues (e.g., abortion, end of life, climate change, land useetc). The most common illustrations are public (citizens?) assemblies and participatory
budgeting processes. Public assemblies take many forms but typically involve groups ofrandomly selected residents, designed to be representative of the general population, who
are given the resources, access to experts and time to learn and deliberate on a set topic inorder to produce a set of recommendations that will inform broader decision making.
At a time when trust in democratic institutions is low and polarization high, participatory
democracy offers some key benefits: surfacing shared policy preferences, working in diverse
groups for sustained periods, and engaging in more intensive forms of civic engagement.
However, there is nothing inherent in the structure of assemblies that focuses them on the
future beyond the fact that they exist apart from the electoral cycle, which is inevitably shortterm. That longer term focus needs to be intentionally embedded in the context setting anddesign of the deliberative process itself ? in the selection and framing of the topic, in the useof scenarios and imagination exercises, and in the use of intergenerational role play as part ofthe deliberation itself.39 Design interventions like these will ensure that decisions madethrough deliberative processes benefit from a longer time horizon and greater creativity, andfoster intergenerational awareness and empathy.

14 | Fut ure Desig nInterventions like Future Design will ensure that decisions
made through deliberative processes benefit from a longer
time horizon and greater creativity, and foster
intergenerational awareness and empathy.

The Japanese example from Yahaba40 (discussed earlier in this brief) shows how Future
Design can be incorporated deeply into a participatory democracy process and how it
affects both the nature of the deliberation and the policy recommendations. The Yahaba
deliberation was novel because the residents were divided into groups, evenly divided
between those being their present selves and taking on the role of representatives from2060. At the end of their deliberations, the two groups had very different policy
recommendations and rankings. In their subsequent negotiations, the future generationgroups were able to shift the perspective of the present groups to extend their circle ofconcern to their descendants.
The same basic insight applies to other participatory and deliberative settings, fromparticipatory budgeting processes to official public meetings. In the case of participatory
budgeting, community members decide how to spend part of a public budget.41 As theseprocesses spread 42 and the dollar amounts they are able to influence increase, role playusing imaginary future generations could influence budgetary priorities, reflecting deeper
thinking about how the world should look in the future as well as intergenerational
negotiations. Introducing Future Design into official public meetings may promote moreshared aspirations for the locality or agency in question and help model how to have better
conversations and visioning across diverse viewpoints. This is particularly crucial as many of
the official interactions between residents and local governments, school systems, planningboards, and police departments are full of frustration, conflict, and mistrust, when they could
be opportunities to bring communities together productively to focus on how to improvethem, and provide a safe venue for constructive dialogue.

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A p p licat ion t o g overnance and g overning inst it ut ions
The examples we?ve shared from Japan show that taking on the personas of imaginary future
persons can change preferences and decision making outcomes. The next frontier is theapplication of Future Design to settings where most policy makers are making important
decisions ? like administrative and legislative bodies. Indeed, most legislative decisions
already involve implicit assumptions and theories about future conditions and the continued
efficacy of policies, interventions and investments.
By making futures and intergenerational trade-offs more explicit rather than implicit, Future
Design holds the potential to help legislators get more creative and adept at generating
solutions that can take into account the needs of current generations as well as future
generations. In this manner, Future Design can also be an entree for legislators and executive
agency staff to get comfortable with a broader range of foresight tools that enableinstitutions to thrive under a range of different scenarios. This technique can be used at alllevels of government in their administrative and legislative branches.43

By making futures and intergenerational tradeoffs more
explicit rather than implicit, Future Design holds the potential
to help legislators get more creative and adept at generating
solutions that can take into account the needs of current
generations as well as future generations.

Future Design can also complement and boost other efforts to improve intergenerational
fairness. The SOIF Framework for Intergenerational Fairness (IGF), as detailed on the Schoolof International Futures website and in a recent toolkit published by California 100 and
School of International Futures, has three essential elements? an intergenerational policy
assessment tool, intergenerational dialogue, and institutional stewardship.44 Future Design
can be used in varying degrees at each stage of the Framework for Intergenerational
Fairness, and most notably in the dialogue phase.

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As the Intergenerational Fairness toolkit indicates, an intergenerational dialogue is a?participative foresight process that collaboratively explores potential futures of a society orsystem, including a collective ideal vision for the future.?45 Future Design can be deployed as
one particular version of intergenerational dialogue that enables greater creativity andconcreteness with respect to engaging future generations. It can also be used as
preparatory work for more standard versions of intergenerational dialogues, by using an
imaginary future generation component in the first phase to develop necessary context(defining the issues and drivers of change that shape a community?s future) and the designof plausible scenarios.
Future Design can also help strengthen the capabilities and commitments of governing
institutions to implement solutions that are intergenerationally fair. As noted in theIntergenerational Fairness toolkit, institutional stewardship can be built in a range ofgoverning institutions including executive and legislative branches of government,
appointed commissioners or watchdogs representing current or or future generations (suchas the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales)46 , and civil society actors such as
nonprofit foundations, interest groups organizing around particular issues, and businesses
that prioritize sustainability and social impact.47 As examples from corporate boardrooms
and municipal agencies in Japan have shown, institutions can use Future Design not only intheir public engagement activities but also in their internal work to strengthen organizational
capacity for resilience and anticipatory decision making.
Finally, Future Design can be utilized by international organizations and agencies. W ith theupcoming United Nations Summit of the Future48 in September 2024, and the commitmentof various United Nations agencies to deepen work in foresight and engage youth voices in amore intentional manner in futures planning,49 Future Design can be a helpful tool totranslate intention to action.

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5. A ct ivat ing Fut ure Desig n
Future Design is a promising futures practice and intervention that can be used in a numberof different ways to combat policy myopia, spark creativity, and improve long-term decision
making. In the broadest sense, Future Design can be used to enhance perspective taking
and raise awareness by enabling participants to experience and embody how actions taken(or not taken) today can affect the lives and livelihoods of future generations.
We see a menu of options that organization leaders and decision makers of all stripes canuse when adopting and adapting Future Design to the U.S. context and more broadly. First,
as we have discussed in the case of design charrettes and deliberative democracy, elementsof Future Design can easily be incorporated as a warm-up exercise or mindset-orientation
exercise as part of other deliberative or participatory exercises. The preparation required forthis option involves a review of key reference material on Future Design in Japan, creatingrole playing scenarios that make sense for participants in other countries, and paying
attention to the relevant context of participants in the design, deliberation or decision
making exercise.

Menu of o p t ions f or Fut ure Desig nCredit: Karthick Ramakrishnan

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Future Design can be used effectively not only in local contexts but also for larger-scale
policy conversations at the state, national, and international levels. Indeed, this technique
can be particularly relevant to decisions involving short-term costs and longer-term benefits,
such as spending on public infrastructure, early childhood education, and plans todecarbonize housing and energy sources. The method can also help to address simmeringintergenerational conflicts on issues such as housing supply, quality jobs, climate change
and energy transitions, solvency of social welfare programs, and debt burdens, to name afew examples. Finally, Future Design could also help policy makers, corporations, civilsociety organizations, and members of the public engage more effectively on the ethical,
policy, and research decisions pertaining to technology, their potential for disruption, andtheir contributions to the social good.50`
W ith increased experimentation and adoption in planning and other contexts of deliberationand decision making, we see an important role and need for academic and other research
institutions to iterate, improve upon and evaluate Future Design practices in experiments
being conducted across the globe. Academic institutions in Japan are already playing thisrole, working in partnership with public and private agencies, improving their decision
making ? by applying the latest insights from the science of Future Design.

In addition to promoting applied research and supporting communities of interest in Future
Design, universities can play an important role in integrating Future Design into thecurricula of professional schools of architecture, design, urban planning, and public
policy,50 and into a range of public-private partnerships that support government
agencies in their efforts to incorporate more innovation into their planning and design. We
also see an opportunity for existing institutions and communities who specialize instrategic foresight to deepen their expertise in Future Design, produce public-facing
toolkits, and eventually provide technical assistance to those who wish to implement thetechnique.
W hether in government, civil society, or academia, Future Design offers a low cost,
accessible intervention to broaden perspectives, encourage more long term, imaginative
thinking, and build empathy. Future Design can introduce more aspirational thinking into
any number of conversations that are already taking place, as well as encourage new
ones. At a time of great flux, threat and possibility, this is an essential technique to add to
our toolbox.

19 | End not es

End not es
1. Anticipatory decision making is more sophisticated than proactive decision making; theformer uses foresight techniques such as scenarios that take into account the possibility ofmultiple futures, while the latter relies on simpler techniques such as forecasting thatproject recent trends into future likelihoods.
2. Wasserman, Lambert, and Selin, ?Future Design: Exploring Affirmative Futures Through an
Intergenerational Outlook.?
3. In addition to having the element of Imaginary Future Generations, Future Design
exercises can also include other elements of systems thinking such as causal loop design(Hara et al., ?Policy Design by ?Imaginary Future Generations?with Systems Thinking.?),scenarios (Hara et al., ?Reconciling Intergenerational Conflicts with Imaginary Future
Generations.?), and other systems change exercises (Kania, Kramer, and Senge, ?The Water ofSystems Change.?) that can illustrate the consequences of various hypothetical decisions.
4. For more on intergenerational fairness tools and practices, read the Intergenerational
Fairness Toolkit from California 100 and School of International Futures (SOIF). Additional
resources and examples are available at SOIF?s Intergenerational Fairness Collaboratory.
5. Information about the Future Design Research Center at Kyoto University of Advanced
Science is online, with some materials available in English.
6. The Hara Lab, or Future Design Lab at Osaka University, conducts research and works withpartners in industry, academia, and government to change the ?design of social systems toaddress complex and long term issues related to the future and create a sustainable
society.?
7. Nakagawa is currently leading a Future Design project at RIHN, and will return to Sophia
University in spring 2025. In addition, Masako Ichihara, a researcher at RIHN, has been
conducting Future Design for the Future of Agriculture in Kyoto at the Kyoto Climate Change
Adaptation Center.
8. Shinshu University is located in Nagano prefecture, and the Future Design Research
Project is working with local governments in the region. There is information online inJapanese.

20 | End not es

9. Saijo, ?Future Design: An Introduction.?
10. Saijo, ?Future Design: Bequeathing Sustainable Natural Environments and Sustainable
Societies to Future Generations?
11. Hara, ?Application of Future Design to Policies.?
12. Saijo, ?Future Design: Bequeathing Sustainable Natural Environments and Sustainable
Societies to Future Generations?
13. Kamijo et al., ?Negotiating with the Future.?
14. Saijo, ?Future Design.?
15. Ibid. See also Saijo, ?Futurability, Survivability, and the Non-Steady State in theIntergenerational Sustainability Dilemma.?
16. There is an articulation of Haudeosaunee values here. Notably, the Haudenosaunee
Confederacy, which includes the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, issaid to have inspired the framers of the U.S. Constitution (Jennifer Davis, ?The
Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the Constitution,?Library of Congress, September 21,
2023.
17. Sakura and Saijo, ?Future Design - Discuss Japan.?
18. Clarkson et al., Our Responsibility to the Seventh Generation. ?The concept ofintergenerational equity, embodied in the teaching of the seventh generation, points out thenecessity of ensuring the survival of future generations to a society whose heavy discountingof the future has resulted in a massive degradation of the world inherited from their parents
and grandparents.?(p. 76)
19. Hershfield, ?The Self Over Time.?
20. Hershfield, ?Essay | The Benefits of Getting to Know Your Future Self.?

21. There is more information on their approach, and detailed slides on the three step Future
Design methodology now being used by Tatsuyoshi Saijo and his colleagues that they
adapted for use in the Netherlands, Also in the Netherlands, the Scientific Council for
Government Policy ran an eight-person Future Design pilot.

21 | End not es

22. Wasserman, Lambert, and Selin, ?Future Design: Exploring Affirmative Futures Throughan Intergenerational Outlook.?
23. Hara et al., ?Reconciling Intergenerational Conflicts with Imaginary Future Generations.?
24. Hara et al., ?Effects of Experiencing the Role of Imaginary Future Generations in
Decision-Making.?
25. Hara, ?Application of Future Design to Policies.?
26. Saijo, ?Future Forebearers.?
27. Hara et al., ?Policy Design by ?Imaginary Future Generations?with Systems Thinking.?;Hara, Kuroda, and Nomaguchi, ?How Does Research and Development (R&D) Strategy Shiftby Adopting Imaginary Future Generations??
28. Hara et al., ?Reconciling Intergenerational Conflicts with Imaginary Future Generations.?
29. Edwards-Schachter et al., ?Disentangling Competences.?; Rank, Pace, and Frese, ?Three
Avenues for Future Research on Creativity, Innovation, and Initiative.?
30. Saijo, ?Future Design.?
31. Pandit et al., ?Taking the Perspectives of Future Generations as an Effective Method forAchieving Sustainable Waste Management.?
32. Hara et al., ?Effects of Experiencing the Role of Imaginary Future Generations in
Decision-Making.?
33. Described in an email communication from Tatsuyoshi Saijo to the authors, dated April
19, 2024.
34. Nakagawa and Saijo, ?Future Design as a Metacognitive Intervention for Presentism.?

35. Glenday et al., Beyond Strategic Planning: A Foresight Toolkit for Decision Makers.

36. Gardner, ?Not All Public Participation Events Are Charrettes.?

22 | End not es

37. The evolving science and practice of Future Design in Japan indicates that imaginary
future generation interventions can make a difference to all participants in a design processrather than simply being confined to a treatment group vis a vis a control group that receives
no treatment in imaginary future generation perspective taking. See Hara et al., ?Effects ofExperiencing the Role of Imaginary Future Generations in Decision-Making.?
38. Participedia is ?a global crowdsourcing platform for researchers, activists, practitioners,
and anyone interested in public participation and democratic innovations.?It shows the wide
range of democratic practices that are considered participatory and include people?sassemblies, participatory budgeting, and town or local meetings.
39. The California 100 initiative conducted a series of deliberative democracy exercises,
adding a prompy about future scenarios, and found that California resident opinions on
various policies and about the future of California varied significantly between deliberatorsand non-deliberators (California 100, ?California Considers: Policy Deliberations for ourLong-term Success.?) After conducting a simplified version of Future Design at a subsequent
event, the California 100 team found that participants in the Future Design exercise weremuch more likely to engage in transformational thinking and displaying openness to bolder
solutions than those who participated in the prior deliberative democracy exercise without asimilar Imaginary Future Generations component.
40. Hara et al., ?Reconciling Intergenerational Conflicts with Imaginary Future Generations.?
41. Participatory Budgeting Project.
42. Gilman and Lucero, "Participatory Budgeting Is About to Blow Up Across the Country."(February 2023).
43. Organizations like Future Caucus in the United States work with bipartisan groups oflegislators to solve problems in a collaborative and constructive way despite at a time ofdeep partisan polarization, distrust and dysfunction. Many of their legislators are younger
than average. Recently, the organization began convening policymakers to develop strategic
foresight skills through their Policy Innovation Lab. To build on this momentum, one could try
new role play techniques with receptive legislators to socialize and normalize their use.
44. Glenday et al., Intergenerational Fairness Toolkit: Designing Policies and Practices for
Current and Future Generations.
45. Ibid., p 21.

23 | End not es

46. The Future Generations Commissioner role for Wales was created by the 2015
Well-being of Future Generations Act and new functions on intergenerational fairness
considerations have been added to the Wales Auditor General.
47. Glenday et al., Intergenerational Fairness Toolkit: Designing Policies and Practices for
Current and Future Generations, p 26.
48. United Nations, Summit of the Future.
49. See Our Common Agenda, UN Secretary General Guterres?vision for the future of global
cooperation.
50. See Daniel Barben et al., "Anticipatory Governance of Nanotechnology: Foresight,
Engagement, and Integration"; Hara et al., ?Designing Research Strategy and Technology
Innovation for Sustainability by Adopting ?Imaginary Future Generations?? a Case Study Using
Metallurgy?; Hara et al., ?Assessing Future Potentiality of Technologies from the Perspectiveof ?Imaginary Future Generations?? a Case Study of Hydrothermal Technology?; Hara, Kuroda,
and Nomaguchi, ?How Does Research and Development (R&D) Strategy Shift by Adopting
Imaginary Future Generations??

24 | Referenc es

Ref erences
Barben, Daniel, Erik Fisher, Cynthia Selin, and David H. Guston. 'Anticipatory Governance ofNanotechnology: Foresight, Engagement, and Integration.' In The handbook of scienceand technology studies, pp. 979-1000. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2008.
California 100. 'California Considers: Policy Deliberations for Our Long-term Success.'
Clarkson, Linda, Vern Morrissette, Gabriel Regallet, and International Institute for Sustainable
Development. Our Responsibility to the Seventh Generation: Indigenous Peoples andSustainable Development. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 1992.
Edwards-Schachter, Mónica, Ana García-Granero, Mabel Sánchez-Barrioluengo, Henry
Quesada-Pineda, and Nabil Amara. 'Disentangling Competences: Interrelationships on
Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.' Thinking Skills and Creativity 16 (June 1,2015): 27?39.
Gardner, Lindsey. 'Not All Public Participation Events Are Charrettes.' Community,
November 6, 2019..
Gilman, Hollie Russon, and Lizbeth Lucero. ?Participatory Budgeting Is About to Blow up
Across the Country.?The Fulcrum, February 15, 2023.
Glenday, Peter, Karthick Ramakrishnan, California 100, and School of International Futures(2023). Beyond Strategic Planning: A Foresight Toolkit for Decision Makers. University ofCalifornia.
Glenday, Peter, Ellen Shepherd, Karthick Ramakrishnan, California 100, and School ofInternational Futures (2023). Intergenerational Fairness Toolkit: Designing Policies andPractices for Current and Future Generations. University of California.
Hara, Keishiro. 'Application of Future Design to Policies: Insights from the Practices Adopting ?
Imaginary Future Generations.?Research Institute of Economy, Trade, and Industry (Japan)(blog), January 23, 2024.
Hara, Keishiro, Yoko Kitakaji, Hiroaki Sugino, Ritsuji Yoshioka, Hiroyuki Takeda, Yoichi Hizen,
and Tatsuyoshi Saijo. 'Effects of Experiencing the Role of Imaginary Future Generations in
Decision-Making: A Case Study of Participatory Deliberation in a Japanese Town.'
Sustainability Science 16, no. 3 (May 1, 2021): 1001?16.

25 | Referenc esHara, Keishiro, Masashi Kuroda, and Yutaka Nomaguchi. 'How Does Research andDevelopment (R&D) Strategy Shift by Adopting Imaginary Future Generations? ? Insightsfrom Future Design Practice in a Water Engineering Company.' Futures 152 (September,2023): 103221.
Hara, Keishiro, Iori Miura, Masanori Suzuki, and Toshihiro Tanaka. 'Assessing Future
Potentiality of Technologies from the Perspective of ?Imaginary Future Generations?? aCase Study of Hydrothermal Technology.' Technological Forecasting and Social Change
202 (May 1, 2024): 123289.
? ? ? . 'Designing Research Strategy and Technology Innovation for Sustainability by
Adopting "Imaginary Future Generations"? a Case Study Using Metallurgy.' Futures &Foresight Science 5, no. 3?4 (2023): e163.
Hara, Keishiro, Yutaka Nomaguchi, Shinya Fukutomi, Masashi Kuroda, Kikuo Fujita, Yoko
Kawai, Masayuki Fujita, and Takuro Kobashi. 'Policy Design by "Imaginary Future
Generations" with Systems Thinking?: A Practice by Kyoto City towards Decarbonization in
2050.' Futures 154 (December 1, 2023): 103272.
Hara, Keishiro, Ritsuji Yoshioka, Masashi Kuroda, Shuji Kurimoto, and Tatsuyoshi Saijo.
'Reconciling Intergenerational Conflicts with Imaginary Future Generations: Evidence
from a Participatory Deliberation Practice in a Municipality in Japan.' Sustainability
Science 14, no. 6 (November 1, 2019): 1605?19.
Hershfield, Hal. 'Essay | The Benefits of Getting to Know Your Future Self.' Wall Street
Journal, June 17, 2023, sec. Life.
Hershfield, Hal E. 'The Self Over Time.' Current Opinion in Psychology, Time, 26 (April 1, 2019):
72?75.
Kamijo, Yoshio, Asuka Komiya, Nobuhiro Mifune, and Tatsuyoshi Saijo. 'Negotiating with the
Future: Incorporating Imaginary Future Generations into Negotiations.' Sustainability
Science 12, no. 3 (May 1, 2017): 409?20.
Kania, John, Mark Kramer, and Peter Senge. 'The Water of Systems Change.' FSG, May 15,
2018.
Nakagawa, Yoshinori, and Tatsuyoshi Saijo. 'Future Design as a Metacognitive Intervention for
Presentism.' Sustainability 12, no. 18 (January 2020): 7552.

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Pandit, Arpana, Yoshinori Nakagawa, Raja Rajendra Timilsina, Koji Kotani, and Tatsuyoshi
Saijo. 'Taking the Perspectives of Future Generations as an Effective Method for Achieving
Sustainable Waste Management.' Sustainable Production and Consumption 27 (July 1,2021): 1526?36.
Rank, Johannes, Victoria L. Pace, and Michael Frese. 'Three Avenues for Future Research on
Creativity, Innovation, and Initiative.' Applied Psychology 53, no. 4 (2004): 518?28.
Saijo, Tatsuyoshi. 'Futurability, Survivability, and the Non-Steady State in theIntergenerational Sustainability Dilemma.' Politics and Governance 12, no. 0 (February 28,2024).
Saijo, Tatsuyoshi. 'Future Design.' In The Future of Economic Design: The Continuing
Development of a Field as Envisioned by Its Researchers, edited by Jean-François Laslier,
Hervé Moulin, M. Remzi Sanver, and W illiam S. Zwicker, 253?60. Cham: Springer
International Publishing, 2019.
Saijo, Tatsuyoshi. 'Future Design: An Introduction.' In Future Design: Incorporating
Preferences of Future Generations for Sustainability, edited by Tatsuyoshi Saijo, 1?16.
Singapore: Springer, 2020.
Saijo, Tatsuyoshi. 'Future Design: Bequeathing Sustainable Natural Environments andSustainable Societies to Future Generations.' Sustainability 12, no. 16 (January 2020): 6467.
Saijo, Tatsuyoshi. 'Future Forebearers.' The RSA, August 31, 2021.
Sakura, Osamu, and Tatsuyoshi Saijo. 'Future Design - Discuss Japan.' Japan Foreign Policy
Forum, January 19, 2019.
Shepherd, Ellen, Peter Glenday, Karthick Ramakrishnan, and California 100. A Foresight
Toolkit for Policy Educators. California 100, October 1, 2023.
Wasserman, Sherrie, Lauren Lambert, and Cynthia Selin. 'Future Design: Exploring
Affirmative Futures Through an Intergenerational Outlook.' Arizona State University, 2019.

Acknow ledgment s: We are grateful to Tatsuyoshi Saijo, Keishiro Hara, Yoshinori Nakagawa, andCynthia Selin for reading prior drafts of this report, providing valuable feedback and suggesting
helpful resources. Responsibility for errors of fact or interpretation lies solely with the authors.
Suggested cit at ion: Suzette Brooks Masters and Karthick Ramakrishnan, 2024. The Promise of
Future Design: Using intergenerational role play and negotiation to improve planning anddecision-making? and become better ancestors. London, UK: School of International Futures.

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