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

The seminar on "Concepts and Methods of Futures Research for Governance and Decision-Making" by the director of the Millennium Project, Dr. Jerome C. Glenn was held on June 11-14, 2007 at the Crescent Beach Hotel in Baku. The seminar was intended for senior government officials and business leaders. The event was organized by the Azerbaijan Future Studies Society (AFSS) with the financial support of the Ministry of Communication 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-days seminar 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 opening ceremony by Mrs. Reyhan Huseynova, chair of the AFSS and Mr. Rufat Gulmammedov, head of the department of the MCIT. Both speakers welcomed participants and talked about the importance of the seminar. Then the seminar continued by the introduction of participants to each other. They shared information about the challenges they faced while implementing their objectives and expectations from the seminar.

Dr. Jerome C. Glenn provided background information about future research and continued by explaining what is modern future research and philosophical assumptions, describing key concepts in future research as well as how to manage to connect future research to decision making. 

The second day of the training started was dedicated to: Overview and Introduction to Future Research Methodology, Environmental Scanning, Delphi, and Real Time Delphi Future Wheel, Trend Impact Analysis, Cross Impact Analysis Scenario Construction (exploratory and normative). Dr. Jerome C. Glenn explained the meaning and the idea of unpacking the notion of Future Research, Systems and Modeling, Relevance Trees and Morphological Analysis, Genius Forecasting, Participatory Methods, Simulation and Gaming. Also, Dr. Glenn provided more detailed information about 15 Global Challengers.

The seminar was highly welcomed and appreciated by participants. Many questions were asked by the participants. The majority of the questions about developing future mind in Azerbaijan, especially implementation of the Delphi system. Also, a lot of interest was directed to writing a scenario of the state of the future. The seminar was very successful and participants were awarded with relevant certificates. 

June 2007
Baku, Azerbaijan