A good piece on science policy in Europe is a bit spoilt by a call to 'get its act together'. Another good contribution on the future of work starts losing the support of its audience by using phrases such as 'there prevails in many advanced economies a hegemonic totalising discourse that '. To use language in this way is to signal your retreat into an exclusivist world where good ideas all too quickly become bad essays. A tutorial for the self alone. Please, save us from stuff like this.
Some pieces are, in the full pejorative sense, downright academic.
But, though Foresight has a strong British focus, the spread of international contributors alone makes for a really good fizz of ideas and arguments. Too much forecasting over the years has been heavily Anglocentric as, to take one example, contemporary debates on the theme of European identity and culture will reveal. All too easily, prevailing political assumptions can enter the notionally neutral world of research and measurement. It is certainly the business of our best thinkers to combine, to contest and to subvert all forms of mental provincialism. The juxtaposition of American and mainland European futurists alongside the United Kingdom's finest does give serious merit to the Foresight concept and will prove, I suspect, the source of its long-term value to the many audiences the journal is trying to address.