The seminar on "Concepts and Methods of Futures Research for Governance and Decision-Making"

The seminar on "Concepts and Methodsof Futures Research for Governance and Decision-Making" by the director ofthe Millennium Project, Dr. Jerome C. Glenn was held on June 11-14, 2007 at theCrescent Beach Hotel in Baku. The seminar was intended for senior governmentofficials and business leaders. The event was organized by the AzerbaijanFuture Studies Society (AFSS) with the financial support of the Ministry ofCommunication and Information Technologies of the Republic of Azerbaijan(MCIT). The representatives of various government agencies and ministries,international organizations, NGOs and local companies, attended the seminar.About 60 participants of the event were divided into two groups for 2-daysseminar per each, first held on 11-12th and the second on 13-14 th of June,2007. English and Azerbaijani were the two working languages of the event. 

 On 11th of June the seminar started with openingceremony by Mrs. Reyhan Huseynova, chair of the AFSS and Mr. Rufat Gulmammedov,head of the department of the MCIT. Both speakers welcomed participants andtalked about the importance of the seminar. Then the seminar continued by theintroduction of participants to each other. They shared information about thechallenges they faced while implementing their objectives and expectations fromthe seminar.

Dr. Jerome C. Glenn provided backgroundinformation about future research and continued by explaining what is modernfuture research and philosophical assumptions, describing key concepts infuture research as well as how to manage to connect future research to decisionmaking. 

The second day of the training started wasdedicated to: Overview and Introduction to Future Research Methodology,Environmental Scanning, Delphi, and Real Time Delphi Future Wheel, Trend ImpactAnalysis, Cross Impact Analysis Scenario Construction (exploratory andnormative). Dr. Jerome C. Glenn explained the meaning and the idea of unpackingthe notion of Future Research, Systems and Modeling, Relevance Trees andMorphological Analysis, Genius Forecasting, Participatory Methods, Simulationand Gaming. Also, Dr. Glenn provided more detailed information about 15 GlobalChallengers.

The seminar was highly welcomed and appreciated byparticipants. Many questions were asked by the participants. The majority ofthe questions about developing future mind in Azerbaijan, especiallyimplementation of the Delphi system. Also, a lot of interest was directed towriting a scenario of the state of the future. The seminar was very successfuland participants were awarded with relevant certificates. 

June 2007
Baku, Azerbaijan